Impact of Authentic Leadership on Employee Self Efficacy and Service Quality in Private Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia

Background - Issue of service quality in private higher education institutions (PHEIs) has been studied in Malaysia by different researchers and it is mentioned that management and employees should work together to improve the situation. Despite of the important role of PHEIs in Malaysia, the issue of service quality in the industry has been discussed. This is further agreed by Anis et al. (2018) as the facilities provided by PHEIs. Opatokun et al., (2013) has pointed out that authentic leadership as a practice in few PHEIs in Malaysia will lead to higher qual quality of learning. This research intends to study the relationship between the components of authentic lea leadership to improve service quality in PHEIs in Malaysia through employee self-efficacy. Purpose - The scope of present study that consists of private universities in Malaysia is aimed to enables the understanding on service quality and next increases student retention as higher education is described as necessary for individuals, economy and society (Kyllonen, 2012). Present research will focus on authentic leadership towards increasing level service quality in private universities in Malaysia since that it was mentioned by the previous studies that it should be the focus of the decision makers. Design/methodology/approach - This is quantitative research. Questionnaire will be distributed to 200 employees in PHEIs in Malaysia. There will be 5 sections in the questionnaire include the independent variables self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral perspective and balanced processing, employee self-efficacy as mediator and service quality in PHEIs as dependent variable. Questionnaire will be using Likert scale 5 points for strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Likert scale of 5 points is used in present research as researcher would like the respondents to understand their options clearer (Poškus, 2014) besides to ensure the quality of the responses as the respondents are allowed to choose neutral to make selection of the option easier as mentioned by Taherdoost (2020) whereby 5-points is mentioned of one the easiest to use. The sampling is non-purposive sampling as only employees providing services to the students will be selected as respondents for this research. Findings/Expected Contributions - The expected findings for the present research is the positive association between the independent variables of self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral perspective and balanced processing, mediator employee self-efficacy and service quality in PHEIs. Ribeiro et al. (2018) mentioned that authentic leadership encourages improvement on individual performance that is a part of service quality in the service industry. This is further agreed by Qiu et al. (2019) that mentioned employees are willing to go extra miles to provide quality services with the practice of authentic leadership by their supervisors. In the context of higher education, Pinelli et al. (2018) mentioned that the leaders should work towards authenticity as it leads to positive organizational outcomes. Further mentioned, authentic leaders are aware of their values, beliefs and lead with experience and this eliminates biasness. Apart from that, sharing of experience of leaders in PHEIs during their travel for conferences and seminars can be used as the benchmark for necessary improvement in the institutions (Garwe, 2014). This is the practice of relational transparency of authentic leadership that refers to openness of the leaders (Wang et al., 2014). Since that social media has become a marketing tool for higher education, the right marketing strategies and information are significant (Mahaney, 2012). This is to ensure that potential students who might turn to customers are getting the reliable information and higher level of assurance to study in the institutions. As pointed out by Garwe (2014), employees are empowered with the opportunities in leadership capabilities including decision-making during the absence of the institution’s leaders to encourage faster problem solving of students’ dissatisfaction rather than waiting for the leaders to attend to the issues. Research limitations - Present study is mainly focusing on the employees who are providing services to students and not all the employees in the institutions. Originality/value - According Budzar et al. (2019) there is lack of flexibility by the managers in library as a service provided in PHEIs that is important to improve service quality. Authentic leadership is known with flexibility to adapt to the situation (George, 2015)