The role of leadership styles in service quality delivery among small indigenous hospitality enterprises in Nigeria

Recent studies have stressed the need for scholars to examine the influence of leadership stylessuch as transformational, transactional and servant leadership on employee service behaviourand the ultimate effect on service quality delivery. However, some scholars emphasised theneed to study leadership styles based on country’s cultural characteristics since other countrieshave clearly different cultural characteristics from the west that may influence styles ofleadership. In this light, this research aims to examine the role paternalistic leadership style hason employee service behaviour and ultimately service quality in small indigenous hotels inNigeria.A conceptual model linking paternalistic leadership to customer contact employee servicebehaviours underpinned by both theories of social exchange and reasoned action wasformulated, which was then tested upon a sample of 95 customer contact hotel employees and104 customers in Nigeria using structural equation modelling.The results indicate that paternalistic leadership, which is the predominant leadership style inNigerian organisations based on cultural characteristics of Nigeria has no effect on thecustomer contact employees service behaviour and ultimately, service quality. This opposesthe arguments aligning leadership styles with cultural norms and values of a society (Iwowo,2015; Jackson, 2016; Dikko, 2017; Bonsu and Bulley, 2017; Hassan and Lituchy, 2017; Evans,2018). Globalisation is gradually changing the cultural dynamics of Nigerian societies from apurely traditional one to modernity and thus affects the way people expect to be led.Furthermore, the findings communicate to Nigerian Hoteliers that sticking to traditionalleadership styles based on cultural norms and values is becoming obsolete and unfavourable,which is likely ineffectual in influencing positive behaviour and attitudes in employees duringservice encounters and in turn on the organisations service performance