Purpose: The purpose of this study examines the mediating effect of clan leadership in the relationship between hierarchy culture and organizational commitment. Most previous research focused on the relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance or organizational culture and job satisfaction. There are few empirical studies that focus on organizational commitment data because it is difficult to collect in many cases of export-driven small and medium sized enterprises. However, this research measures affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment differently than previous research, which is mostly focused on the hierarchy culture, clan leadership, and organizational commitment measurements. Research design, data, methodology: Conceptual research model is based on the studies of Cameron and Quinn (2011), and Gungor and Sahin (2018). The model is designed with three constructs such as hierarchy culture, organizational commitment, and clan leadership. The monitor culture and coordinator culture are as proxy for the hierarchy culture. The affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment are as proxy for the organizational commitment. And also the facilitator leadership and mentor leadership are as proxy for the clan leadership. Based on three hundred cases such as export-driven small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), this study verify the hypothesis. Hypothesis was analyzed with the structural equation modeling. Results: In case of export-driven small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), clan leadership acts as a mediator in the relationship between hierarchy culture and organizational commitment. In case of export-driven small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with high organizational commitment, clan leadership acts as a mediator in the relationship between hierarchy culture and organizational commitment. In case of export-driven small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with low organizational commitment, clan leadership did not act as a mediator in the relationship between hierarchy culture and organizational commitment. Conclusions: By controlling for the mediating effect of clan culture, this study have improved the academic contributions as well as policy and practical implications through empirical study of clan leadership that affect organizational commitment in the fields of hierarchy culture. In addition, this study means that the mediating effects on the variables of clan leadership were examined.