How servant leaders strengthen job embeddedness: a mediated-moderated model of meaningful work, resilience, and institutional culture

Purpose This study examines how servant leadership strengthens employees' job embeddedness by testing the mediating roles of meaningful work and resilience, and by assessing whether institutional culture conditions these relationships. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected from 340 employees in higher-education institutions in China. The hypothesized direct, mediated and moderated effects were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings Servant leadership is positively related to meaningful work and resilience, and both mechanisms are positively associated with job embeddedness. Mediation analyses indicate that meaningful work and resilience each transmit the effect of servant leadership on job embeddedness. Institutional culture strengthens the resilience–job embeddedness relationship, whereas its moderating effect on the meaningful work–job embeddedness link is not supported. Practical implications Universities can enhance job embeddedness by developing servant leaders who cultivate employees' sense of purpose and build coping capacity, alongside an institutional culture that provides consistent support and resources that enable resilience to translate into sustained attachment and retention. Originality/value Integrating social exchange theory with conservation of resources theory, this study clarifies dual psychological pathways (meaningful work and resilience) through which servant leadership promotes job embeddedness and identifies institutional culture as a contextual boundary condition in the Chinese higher-education setting.