LAISSEZ-FAIRE LEADERSHIP POSITIVELY IMPACTS ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT IN HEALTHCARE CENTRES IN QATAR

Leadership engenders an essential element for organisations to develop business strategies and achieve their goals. This research aims to examine the impact of laissez-faire leadership style on organisational commitment (OCOM) in health care centers in Qatar. The researcher adopted a quantitative approach, using a self-administered questionnaire to collect the primary data. The sample consisted of 218 leaders and supervisors from five healthcare centers in Qatar selected employing non-random sampling. The study indicated a significant positive relationship existed between laissez-faire leadership and OCOM. Moreover, leadership behavior significantly impacted OCOM behaviors. but in different degrees: continuance commitment and normative commitment to a higher extent, and affective commitment less so. Also, the results showed the percentage to which Laissez-Faire leadership style was practiced, in the sample, to be high.


Methods:-
The researcher used a quantitative methodology to collect data in a cross-sectional survey among medical staff, including leaders and supervisors of five healthcare centres in Qatar. Purposive sampling was used, for the researcher sent the questionnaire to employees with job position relevant to the research. Prospective participants received a hard-copy questionnaire to participate in the study, and they were informed of the investigation's objectives and ensured participation was voluntary, and responses would be kept confidential. The population equaled approximately 2,590 medical employees. The sample size was calculated based on Krejcie and Morgan's table. According to Sekaran & Bougie (2016), Krejcie & Morgan (1970) simplified the sample size decision by providing a table suggesting population size and sample size. Therefore, the sample size entailed 335 individuals. Table 1 illustrates the sample distribution across medical centres, highlighting the data collection. Excluding disinterested respondents (n = 3), 335 respondents (99% response rate) remained. Arabic versions of the English scales were created using a translation-back-translation procedure (Schaffer & Riordan, 2003). Responses, based on a a five-point Likert scale, ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), unless otherwise specified.
In the final sample used for analyses, most participants were male (55.22%), between 31 and 40 years of age (39.40%), worked as nurses (44.78%), and had more than five to ten years work experience (29.85%). The health centres were distributed in three locations (north, centre, and west), with participant representation 20%, 60%, and 20%, respectively. See Table 2.   Table 2.
Principal components analysis (PCA) helped to identify and compute composite scores for the items underlying the short version of the laissez-faire scale from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X. The initial eigenvalue indicated one factor explained 61.05% of the variance. The second eigenvalue was just over one, and explained 14.61% of the variance. The solution's second factor was examined using varimax and oblimin rotations of the factor loading matrix. The one-factor solution, which explained 61.05% of the variance, was preferred because of previous theoretical support, the levelling off of eigenvalues on the scree plot after one factor, and the insufficient number of primary loadings and difficulty of interpreting the second factor and subsequent factors. Little difference existed between the three-factor varimax and oblimin solutions. Thus, both solutions were examined in subsequent analyses before deciding to use a varimax rotation for the final solution.
Three items were eliminated because they did not contribute to a simple factor structure and failed to meet a minimum criterion of having a primary factor loading of 0.4 or above, and no cross-loading of 0.3 or above. For the final stage, a PCA of the remaining four items, using varimax and oblimin rotations, was conducted, with one factor explaining 61.05% of the variance. An oblimin rotation provided the best-defined factor structure. All items in this analysis had primary loadings over 0.5. Table 4 presents the factor loading matrix for this final solution. The factor labels Hinkin & Schriesheim (2008a) proposed suited the extracted factors and were retained. Internal consistency for scale was examined using Cronbach's alpha. The alphas were high: 0.85 for LFL (4 items). No substantial increases in alpha for any of the scales could have been achieved by eliminating more items.
A composite score was created for one factor, based on the mean of the items, having primary loadings on the factor. Higher scores indicated greater use of the coping strategy laissez-faire leadership with a negatively skewed 970 distribution depicting the coping strategy the participants reported using the most. Table 3 displays the descriptive statistics. The skewness and kurtosis were well within a tolerable range for assuming a normal distribution.
Overall, these analyses revealed that one factor, highly internally consistent, underlined the responses to the short version of the LFL items. Three of the seven items were eliminated. However, the original factor structure Hinkin & Schriesheim proposed (2008a) was retained. Approximately normal distribution was evident for the composite score data in the current study; therefore, the data was well suited for parametric statistical analyses.  Table 4), further confirming each item shared some common variance with other elements. Given these overall indicators, factor analysis was deemed suitable with 14 items.
PCA was employed to identify and compute composite scores for the factors underlying the OCOM. Initial eigenvalues revealed the first three factors explained 25.05%, 21.27%, and 15.75% of the variance, respectively. The fourth, fifth, and sixth factors had eigenvalues just over one, and each explained 16.12% of the variance. Solutions for four, five, and six factors were each examined using varimax rotations of the factor loading matrix. The three-factor solution, which explained 62.08% of the variance, was preferred because of its previous theoretical support, the levelling off of eigenvalues on the scree plot after three factors, and the insufficient number of primary loadings and difficulty of interpreting the fourth factor and subsequent factors. Little difference emerged between the three-factor varimax and varimax solutions. Thus, both plots were examined in subsequent analyses before deciding to use varimax rotation for the final solution.
Four items were eliminated because they did not contribute to a simple factor structure and failed to meet a minimum criterion of having a primary factor loading of 0.4 or above and no cross-loading of 0. For the final stage, a PCA of the remaining 14 items, using varimax rotation, was conducted, with three factors explaining 62.08% of the variance. A varimax rotation provided the best-defined factor structure. All items in this analysis had primary loadings over 0.5.
Internal consistency for each of the scales was examined using Cronbach's alpha. The alphas were meritorious: 0.779 for AF (6 items), middling 0.826 for NC (4 items), and 0.734 for CC (4 items). Eliminating more items did not yield any substantial increases in alpha for any of the scales. Overall, these analyses indicated three distinct factors (AF, NC, CC) were underlying manager responses to the OCOM, where AF, NC, CC were meritorious internally consistent.
Composite scores were created for each of the three factors, based on the mean of the items with primary loadings on each factor. Higher scores indicated greater organizational commitment. AF was the most reported organizational commitment, with a negatively skewed distribution, while NC and CCwere used considerably less and had positively skewed distributions. Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 6. The skewness and kurtosis were well within a tolerable range for assuming a normal distribution. Although a varimax rotation was used, only small correlations between each of the composite scores existed: 0.167 between affective commitment and normative; 0.132 between AF and CC; and 0.141 between NC and CC.   According to Avolio & Bass (2004), it represents the absence of leadership, and employees working under this leadership seek assistance and supervision from alternative sources since they are left to their own devices to execute their jobs (Dubinsky et al., 1995).
Laissez-faire leadership presents a quandary that must be approached with extreme caution. On the one hand, it permitsemployees the freedomconcerning the completion of their work, encourages personal growth innovation, and allows for fasterdecision making. On the other hand, this leadership style is not appropriate for situations where employees lack the knowledge or are not good at managing projects, setting deadlines, and solving problems. The laissez-faire leader deserts responsibility, and sometimes they answer questions but avoid feedback and make little effort to satisfy employee needs (Yukl & Gardner, 2020). Well-known business leaders have adopted laissez-faire leadership. Steve Jobs, for example, gave instructions to his groups about what he would like to see, then left them to figure out how to fulfill his wishes (Cherry, 2020).
According to Nijhof et al. (Nijhof et al., 1998), company success does not depend only on the human factor but also depends on how the institution motivates its commitment to the enterprise. Employees with OCOM are more willing to accept change and less likely to engage in withdrawal (Iverson & Buttigieg, 1999). According to Kouzes and Posner (Kouzes & Posner, 1997), since no unified leadership approach exists, leaders must select the way of directing based on various situations and circumstances. They need to motivate employees to participate in making decisions and solving problems to increase team and entire institutional efficiency (Lorber et al., 2018).
Yousef ( 2017)defined organisational commitment as the individual's psychological attachment to an organisation. It portrays a state of being and remaining a member of a company. Moreover, it involves feeling like a member of a family (Ibrahim, 2015).Although no universally accepted definition of OCOM exists, a common theme has emerged as a binding of the individual to an enterprise (Samad, 2005). Organisational commitment entails three forms: 973 affective commitment, employee emotional attachment, and organisational involvement, and CC, such that the employee wants to remain employed by a business, weighing the costs of leaving the organization against NC, where employees feel obligated to stay with the firm (Allen, N. Meyer, 1990;Meyer et al., 1993).
Mavens have purported laissez-faire leadership harms employee performance and organisational commitment. Amgheib ( 2016)  As defined in this approach, the leaders normally do not interfere in the decision making process. A supervisor allowing employees to make work choices makes them feel free to direct their work, and they feel responsible for their choices. Hence, the researcher formulated these hypotheses: H1. Laissez-faire leadershippositively affects affective commitment. H2. Laissez-faire leadershippositively affects normativecommitment. H3. Laissez-faire leadershippositively affects continuance commitment.

Findings and analysis:
In this section, correlation and simple linear regression were performed to answer the research questions and hypotheses.

Simple linear regression:
After conducting the factor analysis and determining the components, simple regression analysis was performed to uncover the effect of laissez-faire leadership on these elements and examine the first, second and third hypotheses.

Simple regression assumptions:
To examine the hypotheses, the researcher applied simple regression. However, prior conditions and requirements must be met to ensure the test integrity and correctness:

Assumption 1:
A linear relationship exists between the independent variables and the dependent variables. Scatterplots showed this assumption was met. See Appendix 1.

Assumption 2:
The values of the residuals remained independent. The Durbin-Watson tested the residuals from linear regression, or multiple regression were independent. Test statistic values in the range of 1.5 to 2.5 are relatively normal, and residuals remained independent. Values outside of this range could be a cause for concern. The Durbin-Watson results are included in the simple regression tables.

Assumption 3:
The variance of the residuals remained constant. The plot of standardized residuals versus standardized predicted values indicated no apparent signs of funneling, suggesting homoscedasticity (see Appendix 1).

Assumption 4:
The values of the residuals were normally distributed. The histogram and p-p plot for the model supported that the assumption was met (see Appendix 1). After checking the assumptions of linear regression, all assumptions were satisfied. 974

Laissez-faire leadershipand organisational commitment:
The researcher conducted simple linear regression using SPSS V23 to test the hypotheses related to laissez-faire leadershipand organisational commitment. Since the variables were measured on three organisational commitment dimensions, the relationship between organisational commitment and laissez-faire leadership was divided into three sections

Conclusion:-
Laissez-faire leadership augmented organizational commitment as measured in terms of affective, normative, and continuance commitment.