The Impact of Authentic Leadership and Organizational Culture on Employees’ and Patients’ Satisfaction as Determinants of Performance The Case of Military Hospitals in Egypt

Corporate Culture implies leadership in organizations, and several studies have suggested that leaders who practice authentic leadership increase organizations’ overall job satisfaction (Cortés-Denia et al., 2023). The importance of organization culture and authentic leadership has been highlighted in the existing literature. However, few empirical studies currently address the relationship between organizational culture and performance, while the moderating role of authentic leadership remains underexplored. Drawing on the conceptualization of organizational cultures, the purpose of this research is to understand the contribution of authentic leadership in steering organizational culture affecting organization performance indicated by both employees’ and patients’ satisfaction.
The Research problem:
     The problem of this research lies in the lack of studies addressing the corporate culture especially in military hospitals in Egypt and in particular authentic leadership that is not highly researched regarding the medical field.
Design Methodology/Approach/Sampling:
     In recent years, Military Hospitals in Egypt changed their policies to serve civilian patients in addition to military patients and their families. This research targeted Military Hospitals in Egypt specifically in Cairo.
     There are an average of 76 Military hospitals in Egypt with five Military Hospitals in Cairo, however this research focused only on Maadi Medical Hospital as it is the biggest among the five as a representation of the target population as the unit of analysis.
     The research targeted Employees and patients, the research targeted the census of 580 employees working at the hospital where only 105 employees responded with a response rate of 18 percent which might be due employees’ reluctance to answer and partially due to security reasons.
     As for the Patients, the number of patients per week are on average 500 patients, the survey targeted this average, where the responded sample is 270 with a response rate of 54% and the valid responses were 178.
     The analysis of the sample responses gathered are analyzed, presented along with the discussion and findings. In order to answer the main research questions and to fulfill the research objectives, the descriptive analysis followed by the inferential analysis were conducted. Descriptive statistics included frequency tables, computation of mean and standard deviation as well as, graphical representation in the form of pie or bar charts . Inferential statistics included correlation and regression analysis after assessing reliability of the studied variables.
Findings          
     Statistical Analyses conducted emphasized the moderation effect of authentic leadership on the relation between organization culture and employee satisfaction. High level of authentic leadership along with high level of organization culture yields the highest employee satisfaction level, when compared to low level of authentic leadership along with high level of organization culture which yield relatively less employee satisfaction level. This supports the research hypothesis (H4) which states: there is a significant impact of authentic leadership on the relationship between organization culture and performance.
     Demographic effects were found significant, where Gender influenced both authentic leadership and employee satisfaction where females had on average higher perception levels compared to male. Age influenced both organization culture and employee satisfaction where higher perception levels were found in older ages (41 years or above). No education effect was found on the three studied variables (organization culture, authentic leadership, and employee satisfaction).
     Organization culture was found to have a strong positive correlation with employee satisfaction. Furthermore, the effect of one unit increase in organization culture was found to generate on average a 70.4% increase in employee satisfaction as perceived by the employee sample. This supports the research hypothesis (H1) which states that: there is a significant relation between Organizational Culture on Organization Performance.
Practical implications:
     These results provide initial evidence for the role of authentic leadership in enhancing workplace performance. The tested theoretical framework suggests that the adoption of an authentic style can promote policies and practices to proactively manage errors, paving the way to error reduction in the workplace.
     There was sufficient statistical evidence that supports a moderation effect of authentic leadership on the relation between organization culture and employee satisfaction. High level of authentic leadership along with high level of organization culture yields the highest employee satisfaction level, when compared to low level of authentic leadership along with high level of organization culture which yield relatively less employee satisfaction level. This supports the research hypothesis (H4) which states: there is a significant impact of authentic leadership on the relationship between organization culture and performance.
Originality/value:
     This research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating both the importance of authentic leadership and cultural orientation in improving the performance of military hospitals in Egypt.