Work from Home and Adaptive Performance: Job Autonomy and Humble Leadership as a Moderator

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up the landscape for the advantages of work from home (WFH) and adapting oneself in performing tasks. Leadership style and work autonomy also have the potential to assist employees to adapt the flexible work environment. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the effect of WFH, work autonomy and humble leadership on adaptive performance as well as its moderating effect. Self-determination theory is referred to as an underlying theory to identify the extent to which work autonomy and humble leadership may assist employees to be more motivated in performing work from home. The Partial Least Square (PLS) technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships among variables using the 200 responded data. The results of this study indicated that the WFH, job autonomy and humble leadership influenced adaptive performance and employees with high job autonomy and perceived high humble leadership strengthen the relationship between WFH and adaptive performance. The study sheds new light on the theoretical contribution that the extensive of work autonomy and the influence of a humble leadership style has improved adaptive performance even when working from home. Whereas in practice, organizations need to equip supervisors with a humble leadership style and expand work autonomy to strengthen employee performance regardless of where they work. © 2023 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.