Date of Award

5-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Jennifer Bragger

Committee Member

Valerie Sessa

Committee Member

Daniel Simonet

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of having a servant leader (SL) at work on individuals’ and their partners’ work and family meaningfulness (WM) and to explore whether work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between SL and family meaningfulness (FM). SL theory accentuates how leaders simultaneously improve work and family lives by focusing on their employees’ development and this research provided further evidence of this notion. Data were collected from 155 dual-earning couples (310 respondents) and the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) was applied to analyze the effects of SL on the work meaningfulness of the employees and their life partners. The actor-partner interdependence mediation model (APIM-M) investigated whether work meaningfulness mediated the relationship between SL and FM. Our findings reinforced our general hypothesis, as we found evidence for intraindividual indirect effects from SL to family meaningfulness by work meaningfulness and interpersonal indirect effects from SL to spouse’s family meaningfulness through their work meaningfulness. These results provide empirical evidence for that service-oriented leaders increase work meaningfulness in their employees, but also shows its effects on both follower’s and their spouses family meaningfulness.

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