Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues (Print ISSN: 1544-0036; Online ISSN: 1544-0044)

Research Article: 2022 Vol: 25 Issue: 1

The Influence of Transformational Leadership, Professional Ethics, and Work Competence on Organizational Commitment and its Implications for the Performance of Ship Safety

Euis Happy Wangloan, Kementerian Perhubungan Republik Indonesia

Anoesyirwan Moeins, Universitas Persada Indonesia YAI

Marhalinda Marhalinda, Universitas Persada Indonesia YAI

Endri Endri, Universitas Mercu Buana

Citation Information: Wangloan, E.H., Moeins, A., Marhalinda, M., & Endri, E. (2022). The influence of transformational leadership, professional ethics, and work competence on organizational commitment and its implications for the performance of ship safety. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 25(1), 1-8

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to empirically prove the influence of transformational leadership, professional ethics, work competence on commitment and its implications for the performance of Ship Safety Supervisors in the Coordination Work Area of the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormaster Office of the Ministry of Transportation. This research is explanative, descriptive, and verifiable with a causal approach, while the research method used is a survey. The study population was 264 Ship Safety Inspectors in the Coordination Work Area of the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormastership Office. The research sample was taken using the census method technique and obtained the total of samples of 50 respondents and the research sample was 214 respondents. Data collection techniques used questionnaires and data analysis techniques used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with assistance from SPSS and Lisrel software. The result of the structural equation indicates that either partially or jointly Transformational Leadership, Professional Ethics, and Work Competence have a positive and significant effect on Organizational Commitment with a contribution (R-square value) of 58% The dominant variable that affects Organizational Commitment is Work Competence. The result of structural equation 2, either partially or jointly with Transformational Leadership, Professional Ethics, Work Competence, and Organizational Commitment have a positive and significant effect on official Performance with a contribution (R-square value) of 84%. The dominant variable affecting official performance is Organizational Commitment.

Keywords

Transformational Leadership, Professional Ethics, Work Competence, Organizational Commitment, Official Performance.

Introduction

Tanjung Priok is a major national and international port which is the gateway for national and international economic connectivity. Intermodal facilities at this port can connect Tanjung Priok with all ports, such as the ports of Semarang, Medan, Surabaya, Makassar, and others throughout Indonesia. The Ministry of Transportation plays an important role in supporting the implementation of maritime transportation policies and strategies that aim to strengthen shipping lanes with western points in Eastern Indonesia, shipping lane connectivity from west to East Indonesia (connectivity), easy commercial access from South Pacific countries to East Indonesia. East Asian countries as well as regular and scheduled deliveries from West to East Indonesia. For this reason, aspects of ship safety and security in transportation operations must be considered and are the duty of all Technical Implementation Units of the Ministry of Transportation's Offices spread throughout Indonesia, one of which is the Office of the Head of the Tanjung Priok Main Port. In carrying out its functions, duties, and authorities, the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormaster Office has the functions, duties, and authorities as mandated by Law Number 17 of 2008 Shipping Chapter XI to carry out the duties and functions of shipping safety and security which includes the implementation of supervision and law enforcement in In the field of transportation in waters, ports, and protection of the maritime environment at ports, the harbormaster also has the highest authority to coordinate customs, immigration, quarantine, and other government institutional activities in the field of shipping safety and is authorized to carry out maritime inspections and ship safety at ports.

A ship safety inspection is the duty of the Ship Safety Inspectors, whose performance is highly demanded. According to Moss and Cheavens (2019) performance is the level of success in carrying out a task and its ability to achieve predetermined goals. Seeing the above, the performance of Ship Safety Inspector Officers in its development is influenced by several factors such as transformational leadership, professional ethics, work competence, and organizational commitment. Below will be mapped several phenomena and problems that exist in the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormastership Office and its Coordination Work Area. Vessel inspection is carried out by the Ship Safety Inspectors where the ship will be declared sea-worthy or the condition of the ship which meets the ship's safety requirements as evidenced by a certificate after inspections and testing of the ship is carried out, However, in reality, there are still ship accidents found according to ship accident data in the 2012-2018 shipping accident investigation according to the National Transportation Safety Committee. Secondary data results also found that there is still a low organizational commitment for Ship Safety Inspectors who are in the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormastership Organization unit because organizational commitment made by Ship Safety Inspectors is still in normative commitment according to rules and job descriptions without high innovativeness in carrying out their duties as ship safety inspectors. If the commitment of ship safety inspectors to the organization that impacts on the performance of ship safety inspectors is allowed to continue or are cultivated in work, it is necessary to increase the leadership role, especially transformational leadership, which function to examine and identify factors that affect the commitment and performance of ship safety inspectors towards the organization (Hapsari et al., 2021).

Based on the initial observations made, it is known that the leadership in the Coordination Working Area of the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormaster Office of the Ministry of Transportation has not been effective in building awareness of duties and responsibilities as well as high integrity in achieving goals. organization's vision and mission. This is shown, among others, by the incompatibility of educational backgrounds, as well as the lack of managerial leadership abilities in the process of cadre (guidance) of ship safety inspectors. This means that transformational leadership has not been fully implemented in the Tanjung Priok Main Port Office. This needs to be a concern considering that the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormaster Office also oversees a fairly large Regional Coordination Work Unit. In addition to transformational leadership, a factor that affects Organizational Commitment and Performance of Ship Safety Supervisors is Professional Ethics. As a ship safety inspector, you must continue to improve professional ethics. Professional ethics are norms that regulate the behavior of someone who works as a Ship Safety Inspector. The successful performance of the Ship Safety Inspector in his duties and functions is also determined by his competence. One of the efforts to improve its competence is by providing education and training related to its main duties and functions as a Ship Safety Inspector. This study was conducted to empirically prove the influence of leadership, ethics, and competence on organizational commitment and implications for the performance of the Ship Safety Inspector at the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormaster Office. This research contributes both empirically and theoretically related to the field of human resource management, especially organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).

Literature Review

Official Performance

Davidescu et al. (2020) argue that performance can be viewed as a process or result of work. Performance is a process of how work takes place to achieve work results. However, the work itself also shows performance. Several factors need to be considered for an organization to have a good performance, namely regarding the statement of the aims and values of strategic management, human resource management, organizational development, organizational context, work design, functionalization, culture, and cooperation. Furthermore, Davidescu et al. (2020) that behavior change is about improving performance. If there is no change in what is done, it will worsen performance. Continuous performance change is focused on what you can do and what you can change. It is all within your control. You make a difference because it's actually what you do that makes the difference. To understand more about performance, the following is presented in terms of operational performance. Sudiardhita et al. (2018) state that performance includes several aspects, namely: quality of work, promptness, initiative, capability, and communication. These five aspects can be used to measure performance, a special assessment of capabilities and communication is required. Permana et al. (2021) states that performance is a description of the level of achievement of the implementation of an activity/program/policy in realizing the goals, objectives, mission, and vision of the organization which is contained in the formulation of an organization's strategic planning. Vizano et al. (2021) argue that performance is the result of organizational work, which is carried out by employees as best as possible according to instruction (manuals), directions given by leaders (managers), competence, and the ability of employees to develop reasoning at work. Riyanto et al. (2021) prove that motivation has a positive effect on employee performance. According to Tajpour et al. (2021) employee satisfaction is determined by reputation, organizational culture, corporate social responsibility, and training and development. Tajpour and Hosseini (2021) state that company performance increases if it creates and distributes new knowledge through the implementation of new technologies and products.

Organizational Commitment

Mete et al. (2016) provide an understanding of organizational commitment as a level at which individuals identify and engage with their organization and/or do not want to leave it. Kulachai and Amaraphibal (2017) suggest that organizational commitment is the level of loyalty that individuals feel towards the organization. Mete et al. (2016) provides the same understanding between organizational commitment and employee loyalty, which is a level where workers identify with the organization and want to continue to actively participate in it. Workers identify with the organization indicating that workers mix well and according to organizational ethics and expectations that they experience a feeling of oneness with the company. Luthan (2008), argues that organizational commitment is often defined as (a) A strong desire to remain a member of the particular organization, (b) a desire to urge high levels of effort on behalf of the organization, and (c) a definite belief in and acceptance of organizational values and goals. ALJabari and Ghazzawi (2019) define organizational commitment as the desire of some workers to remain members of the organization. Organizational commitment affects whether a worker remains a member of the organization (is retained) or leaves to pursue other work (turns over).

Transformational Leadership

Hapsari et al. (2021) further describe transformational leadership as follows: Transformational leadership refers to the process of building commitment to organizational goals and giving followers the confidence to achieve these goals. The transformational theory also studies how leaders change the culture and organizational structure to be more consistent with management strategies to achieve organizational goals. Conceptually transformational leadership is defined as the ability of leaders to change the work environment, work motivation, and work patterns, and work values that are perceived by subordinates so that they are better able to optimize performance to achieve organizational goals (Virgiawan et al., 2021). That means a transformational process occurs in leadership relationships when leaders build awareness of subordinates of the importance of work values, expand and increase needs beyond personal interests and encourage these changes towards common interests including organizational interests.

The initial concept of transformational leadership has been formulated by Burns (1978) from descriptive research on political leaders. Burns (1978) describes transformational leadership as a process in which "leaders and followers raise themselves to a higher level of morality and motivation," such as freedom, justice, and humanity, and are not based on emotions, such as greed, social jealousy, or hatred (Burns, 1997). In this way, there is a common perception among leaders and subordinates so that they can optimize their efforts towards the goals the organization wants to achieve. Through this method, it is hoped that trust, pride, commitment, respect, and loyalty to superiors will grow so that they can optimize their business and performance better than usual. In short, transformational leaders seek to transform visionaries into shared visions so that they (subordinates plus leaders) work to make the vision a reality. In other words, the transformational process can be seen through several leadership behaviors such as attributed charisma, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

Professional Ethics

Ethics tells us whether our behavior is moral or not and relates to a fundamental human relationship-how we think and act towards others and how we want them to think and act against us. Khalid et al. (2017) explain that ethics is generally divided into two, namely general ethics and special ethics. General ethics talks about the basic conditions for how humans act ethically, how to make decisions and explore the rationality of moral standards of conduct (ethical theories) and basic moral principles in decision making, while special ethics are basic moral principles in decision making, while special ethics are basic moral principles applied in the field certain. Specific ethics are divided into two parts, namely individual ethics and social ethics. Meanwhile, Koh and Boo (2004) state that profession is the work of a limited group of people who have special skills that they have acquired through training or other experiences, or obtained through both so that professionals can guide or give advice/suggestions or also serve others in their field. Kauffman and Hornby (2020) state that the meaning of profession is occupation, especially one requiring advanced education and special training (e.g. the law, architecture, medicine, the Church, often called the learned professions).

Work Competence

Susanto et al. (2020) explain that the use of the term competency was initiated by David Mc. Clelland raised this aspect in 1993, which was provocatively in his writing: testing for competencies rather than intelligence. In this case, Mc. Clelland would like to say that there is something basic characteristic in every individual that is more important in predicting, namely conducting an ability test on many people about how to work successfully in achieving something more valuable than academic intelligence, something that can be determined accurately, can be a critical factor differentiating between a staff performer and deadwood. According to Mc.Clelland, that something is called competence. The basic competency framework refers to steps such as a function then activities/processes, then competency (FAC). The point is to determine what competencies are required in a particular job, first, it is necessary to determine specific functions in a position (function of job), second, to specifically achieve activities in the process of doing that job (activities/process), third, then determine what competency is required (competency) in that position.

Vathanophas (2007) states the notion of competence based on Spencer and Spencer’s opinion as a basic characteristic of individuals which is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or very high performance and a job or situation. Basic characteristics mean that competence is part of the ability to survive a person's personality and can predict behavior in a wider situation and job. A causal relationship means that there are competencies that cause or predict behavior and performance. The criterion-referenced means that competence predicts who is performing well or poorly, as measured on a specific or standard performance. Hager and Gonczi (1996) further explain that the basic conception contained incompetence shows: (1) Competence (n) is being competent, ability (to the work), (2) Competent (adj) refers to (persons) having ability, power, authority, skills, knowledge, etc (to do what is needed), (3) Competency is a rational performance which satisfactorily meets the objectives for the desired condition. The first definition shows that competence shows the ability or ability to do a job. The second conception, further shows that competence is a trait (characteristic), competent people, namely having skills, power (abilities), authority (authority), proficiency (skills), knowledge, and so on to do what is needed. Then the third conception, furthermore, that competence is showing rational action (performance) that can achieve goals satisfactorily based on the expected conditions (prerequisites).

Methods

In connection with the nature of the research in this study, it is explanative and hypothesis testing. Endri et al. (2020) argue that if descriptive research seeks to answer questions about what, where, when, and how, then explanative studies attempt to answer the question "why". Explanative research provides explanations and reasons in the form of a causal relationship. Meanwhile, research on hypothesis testing according to Najib et al. (2021) is research conducted to test whether a theory is true or verifying a theory. In this case, the researcher described a specific hypothesis from the theory to be tested empirically. This research is included in quantitative research. Furthermore, the research approach used in this research is quantitative. Apuke (2017) says quantitative research is a process of finding knowledge that uses data in the form of numbers as a means of finding information about what we want to know. In line with this, Aspers and Corte (2019) explain that quantitative research demands that the variables studied can be measured. This form of research pays great attention to how often a variable occurs and generally uses numbers to convey an amount. The research method used in this study is a survey research method. Survey research is one of the best available methods for social researchers interested in collecting data to explain a population that is too large to be observed directly. Surveys are an excellent method for measuring the attitudes and orientation of society through various public opinion polls.

As for the population in this study are all Ship Safety Inspectors in the Coordination Work Area of the Tanjung Priok Main Harbormastership Office of the Ministry of Transportation, namely 264 people. Furthermore, determining the number of research samples, the researchers used a census sampling technique (total sampling) considering that the number of Ship Safety Inspectors in the Coordinating Work Area of the Ministry of Transportation was 264 people. So that the sample in this study was set at 214 respondents, while the trial sample was 50 people. The technique used in data collection is questionnaires and literature studies. To test the instrument using validity and reliability tests. Validity test with KMO factor analysis and reliability test with Alpha Cronbach. Meanwhile, the inferential statistical method used is the effect test using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) is a statistical analysis tool that is increasingly popular these days. When viewed from the modeling and how it works, SEM is a combination of factor analysis and regression.

Results

After conducting variable construct testing and research hypothesis testing transformational leadership variables, professional ethics, work competence, and organizational commitment as well as an official performance from the results of respondents' perceptions carried out on 214 Ship Safety Inspectors in the Coordinating Work Area of The Tanjung Priok Main Harbormastership Office of the Ministry of Transportation. Then the overall data processing results using Lisrel 8.7 software can be seen in Figure 1 and 2 below:

Figure 1 Overall Path Diagram

Figure 2 T-Value Path Diagram

Based on the output of the data processing using Lisrel 8.7, it can be seen that there are two diagrams, namely the overall path diagram and the t-value path diagram (t-count). The following is a complete description of the diagram Figure 2. The path coefficient of transformational leadership on organizational commitment shows a coefficient value of 0.78 and a t-count of 9.99. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of transformational leadership have a positive and significant effect on organizational commitment.

The path coefficient of professional ethics on organizational commitment shows a coefficient value of 0.72 and a t-count of 8.87. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of professional ethics have a positive and significant effect on organizational commitment. The path coefficient of work competence on organizational commitment shows a coefficient value of 0.81 and the t-count of 11.65. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of work competence have a positive and significant effect on organizational commitment. The equation obtained from the organizational commitment model:

KOM=0.78*KEP+0.72*ETK+0.81*KPT Errorvar = 0.42, R2 = 0.58

The R2 (R-square) number means that the variation in organizational commitment can be explained by transformational leadership, professional ethics, and work competence by 58%, and the remaining 42% is influenced by other factors not examined in the model. The path coefficient of transformational leadership on official performance shows a coefficient value of 0.79 and a tcount of 10.01. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of transformational leadership have a positive and significant effect on official performance. The path coefficient of professional ethics on official performance shows a coefficient value of 0.73 and a t-count of 11.15. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of professional ethics have a positive and significant effect on official performance.

The path coefficient of work competence on official performance shows a coefficient value of 0.77 and the t-count of 9.78. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of work competence have a positive and significant effect on official performance. The path coefficient of organizational commitment on official performance shows a coefficient value of 0.83 and a t-count of 10.55. This value fulfills the requirements for acceptance of H1, namely the t-count value greater than 1.96. Thus, it can be concluded that the dimensions of organizational commitment have a positive and significant effect on official performance. The equation obtained from the official performance model:

KIN=0.79*KEP+0.73*ETK+0.77*KPT+0.83*KOM, Errorvar. = 0.16, R2 = 0.84

The R2 (R-square) number means that the variation in official performance can be explained by transformational leadership, professional ethics, work competence, and organizational commitment by 84%, and the remaining 16% is influenced by other factors not examined in the research model.

Conclusion

Based on empirical findings, research reveals that transformational leadership, professional ethics, work competence partially have a positive effect on organizational commitment. Together they conclude that transformational leadership, professional ethics, and work competence have been shown to have a significant effect on organizational commitment. If it is associated with the performance of officials, the results of the study found that transformational leadership, professional ethics, competence, and organizational commitment proved to have a positive and significant effect on the performance of officials. The joint test concludes that transformational leadership, professional ethics, work competence, and organizational commitment have a significant effect on the performance of officials. The results of the study have implications for the development of human resource management theory, especially focusing on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), regarding leadership, ethics, and competence factors that can determine commitment and have implications for performance achievement. Practical implications recommend that in increasing organizational commitment and impacting performance, company management needs to apply transformational leadership, professional ethics, and work competence. Research has limitations, especially regarding many other factors, both directly and indirectly, have an impact on organizational commitment and leadership performance. For future research agendas, it is recommended to add other factors, including: work environment, motivation, job satisfaction, organizational culture and emotional intelligence.

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