From Organizational Culture to Service Excellence: The Role of Strategic Leadership, Local Culture, and Work Motivation in Shaping Hospital Employee Performance

This study aims to empirically examine the influence of leadership style, organizational culture, and local culture on employee performance, both directly and indirectly through work motivation as a mediating variable in hospitals in Parepare, Indonesia. A quantitative approach was employed using a cross-sectional survey design. Data were collected through structured questionnaires distributed to 320 employees selected through proportional stratified random sampling from three hospitals (RSUD Andi Makkasau, RS Fatima, and RS dr. Hasri Ainun Habibie). Hypothesis testing was conducted using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS software. The results indicate that leadership style and organizational culture have positive and significant effects on both motivation and employee performance, while local culture has a positive and significant effect on motivation but does not significantly influence employee performance directly. Furthermore, motivation has a positive and significant effect on employee performance. The findings further reveal that motivation fully mediates the relationships between leadership style, organizational culture, local culture, and employee performance, with all indirect effects being statistically significant. Notably, local culture influences employee performance only through the mediating mechanism of motivation. Overall, this study highlights the critical role of motivation as a psychological mechanism that translates organizational factors and cultural values into enhanced employee performance. These findings contribute to human resource management literature by integrating local cultural values into a comprehensive mediation model and provide practical insights for hospital management in developing leadership competencies, strengthening organizational culture, and leveraging local wisdom to foster employee motivation and sustainable performance in healthcare settings.