The Impact of Leadership and Organizational Culture on Public Sector Performance: Evidence from the Department of Food Crops, Merauke Regency

Abstract

This study examines the impact of leadership and organizational culture on public sector performance in regional governments, focusing on the Department of Food Crops in Merauke Regency, Indonesia. Grounded in Transformational Leadership Theory, Organizational Culture Theory, and Public Performance Management, this research adopts a quantitative explanatory design to investigate causal relationships among variables. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaires administered to public sector employees, complemented by interviews and institutional documentation. Data analysis was conducted using multiple linear regression to assess both partial and simultaneous effects. The results reveal that leadership significantly and positively influences public sector performance, while organizational culture also demonstrates a strong positive effect on performance outcomes. Furthermore, leadership is found to play a critical role in shaping organizational culture, indicating an indirect pathway through which leadership enhances performance. Simultaneously, leadership and organizational culture explain a substantial proportion of variance in public sector performance, highlighting their strategic importance in public administration. The novelty of this study lies in integrating leadership and organizational culture within a unified empirical model in the context of regional government institutions in Eastern Indonesia, a setting that remains underexplored in existing literature. This study contributes theoretically by reinforcing the multidimensional relationship between leadership, culture, and performance, and practically by offering insights for policymakers to strengthen leadership capacity and foster adaptive organizational cultures to improve public sector effectiveness.