Organizational Culture, Transformational Leadership, and Compensation Effects on Employee Productivity

Abstract

This study investigates how organizational culture, transformational leadership, and compensation shape employee productivity among tenant employees in a decentralized retail environment. The research focuses on employees’ lived experiences in navigating cultural norms, leadership styles, and reward systems within the context of tenant-operated businesses at Living World Mall Denpasar. A qualitative, phenomenological approach was adopted to gain an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon. Fifteen employees representing various retail and service tenants were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi structured interviews. The qualitative data were analyzed using an interpretive framework based on the flow model of analysis outlined by Adil et al. (2023), which includes data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. Thematic coding was employed to identify patterns related to leadership behavior, cultural dynamics, compensation perceptions, and employee productivity. The findings highlight that employee productivity is shaped not only by tangible incentives but also by the perceived fairness of compensation and the alignment between leadership style and organizational values. Organizational culture was found to influence workplace behavior, motivation, and collaboration, while transformational leadership emerged as a key enabler of employee engagement and performance. Compensation was perceived as both a motivator and a signal of organizational appreciation. The interplay between these factors varied across tenants, underscoring the complexity of managing human resources in decentralized organizational settings. The study proposes a conceptual understanding of how organizational culture, transformational leadership, and compensation interact to influence employee productivity in tenant based work environments. It offers practical implications for tenant managers and contributes theoretically by extending existing models of employee performance into a new organizational context within the Indonesian retail sector.