Mediating Role of Perception of Job Insecurity on the Relationship between Despotic Leadership and Work Engagement: Pakistani Perspective

The importance of work engagement (vigor, dedication, absorption) in enhancing employee performance is a recognized area of research. In this competitive and hyper turbulent work environment, disengaged workforce is costly for any organization. Despite its importance, a very low rate of work engagement (i.e.5%) has been found in Pakistan. Drawing on conservation of resource theory (COR), this paper proposes a conceptual framework to find out the impact of despotic leadership behavior on work engagement of employees with a mediating mechanism of employee’s perception of job insecurity. In previous literature little research has been done on despotic leadership and no study has found on this relationship before.