The Effects of Social Entrepreneurs’ Servant Leadership on Employees’ Social Value Orientation - Focusing on the Mediating Effects of Positive Psychological Capital and Organizational Identity Strength - Kyeong-Sook Kim Department of Play Psycholo...
The Effects of Social Entrepreneurs’ Servant Leadership on Employees’ Social Value Orientation - Focusing on the Mediating Effects of Positive Psychological Capital and Organizational Identity Strength - Kyeong-Sook Kim Department of Play Psychological Rehabilitation Major in Play Psychological Rehabilitation Graduate School, Woosuk University Advisor: Dong-Joo Kim, This study aims to empirically verify the impact of social entrep reneurs' servant leadership on social value orientation among em ployees of social enterprises, and to demonstrate the mediating ef fects of positive psychological capital and organizational identity s trength in this process. As social enterprises are organizations th at simultaneously pursue the realization of social values and econ omic sustainability, employees' value orientations and internal psy chosocial factors significantly influence organizational performance and service quality. In particular, since social service sectors, incl uding play-based psychological rehabilitation, operate based on rel ationship-centered interactions, how the organization's values and philosophy are internalized within employees' identities holds sign ificant meaning. Accordingly, this study validated a structural mo del that established servant leadership as the independent variable and social value orientation as the dependent variable, incorporati ng positive psychological capital and organizational identity streng th as parallel mediating variables. Data were collected through a mixed-method survey combining online and offline questionnaires administered to employees of soc ial enterprises nationwide from August 25 to October 25, 2025. A total of 340 valid responses were used for analysis. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 26.0. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to verify the reliability and validit y of the measurement model, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to test the research hypotheses. In addition, the statistical significance of the mediating effects was examined using a bootstrapping procedure with 5,000 resamples. The findings were as follows. First, servant leadership had a si gnificant positive effect on social value orientation (B=.254, p〈 .0 01). Second, servant leadership exerted significant positive effects on both positive psychological capital (B=.651, p〈.001) and organi zational identity strength (B=.674, p〈.001). Third, although the dir ect effect of positive psychological capital on social value orientat ion was not significant (B=.063, p=.393), its indirect effect was si gnificant (Indirect Effect=.041, 95% CI [.019, .078]). Fourth, organi zational identity strength had a significant positive effect on socia l value orientation (B=.561, p〈.001) and significantly mediated the relationship between servant leadership and social value orientatio n (Indirect Effect=.378, 95% CI [.227, .680]). Notably, the indirect effect through organizational identity strength exceeded the direct effect of servant leadership, suggesting that the influence of leade rship is more effectively manifested through the process of organ izational identity formation than through employees’ psychological resources alone. These findings suggest that, within social service organizations i ncluding play psychological rehabilitation settings, employees’ valu e-oriented behaviors are more strongly reinforced through identifi cation with organizational values and philosophy than through ind ividual psychological characteristics. Therefore, leadership practice s and organizational cultures that facilitate the sharing of social missions and core values and strengthen organizational identity a re essential. In summary, this study revealed that servant leadership plays a significant role in enhancing the social value orientation of social enterprise employees and empirically confirmed that the strength of organizational identity acts as a key mediating mechanism in t his process. Furthermore, it is significant in that it provides theor etical and practical implications for explaining the sustainability a nd service quality improvement of value-based interpersonal servi ce organizations by integrally connecting the fields of social enter prises, social services, and play psychology and rehabilitation. Keywords: Social Entrepreneur, Servant Leadership, Social Value Orientation, Positive Psychological Capital, Organizational Identity Strength, Social Enterprise, Play Psychological Rehabilitation, Social Service