Traditional leadership and firm performance in Indonesian family businesses: The mediating role of organisational citizenship behaviour

Abstract

Orientation: Family businesses are central to the Indonesian economy, yet approximately 70% fail to survive beyond the first generation. Traditional leadership models remain underexplored as drivers of family business sustainability in non-Western contexts.
Research purpose: This study examines the influence of Minangkabau Universal Leadership, as a form of traditional leadership that comprises local cultural, religious and learning values, on family business performance, with organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) as a mediating variable.
Motivation for the study: Existing research treats traditional leadership as a monolithic construct and overlooks the behavioural mechanisms.
Research approach/design and method: A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed with 240 family businesses in West Sumatra, Indonesia. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling based on partial least squares.
Main findings: Local cultural values positively affect performance directly and indirectly via OCB. Learning values exert a dominant direct effect through cognitive-strategic pathways. Religious values display competitive mediation: A negative direct effect on performance is offset by a significant positive indirect effect through OCB.
Practical/managerial implications: Practitioners should institutionalise culturally grounded governance and invest in intergenerational knowledge transfer to sustain performance across generations.
Contribution/value-add: This study advances management theory by revealing heterogeneous performance pathways within a single traditional leadership model, resolving the values-constraint paradox in religious leadership and demonstrating differential OCB mediation across value dimensions in a collectivist, matrilineal family business context.