Please Accept My Sincerest Apologies: Examining Follower Reactions to Leader Apology

Recognizing gaps in our present understanding of leader apologies, this investigation examines how followers appraise leader apologies and how these perceptions impact work-related outcomes. Results indicate that followers who viewed their leader as trustworthy or caring before a leader wrongdoing were more likely to perceive their leader’s apology to be sincere, as compared to followers who previously doubted their leader’s trustworthiness and caring. Attributions of apology sincerity affected follower reactions, with followers perceiving sincere apologies reporting greater trust in leadership, satisfaction with supervision, leader–member exchange quality, affective organizational commitment, and forgiveness than those reporting insincere or no apologies. A mediation model was supported, showing that attributions of apology sincerity fostered perceptions of humility, which enhanced perceptions of transformational leadership, and consequently garnered more positive follower reactions.     

Mutual Trust Between Leader and Subordinate and Employee Outcomes

Stable and enduring cooperative relationships among people are primarily based on mutual trust. However, little evidence exists about the effects of mutual trust between supervisor and subordinate on work outcomes. To understand better the dynamics of trust in supervisor–subordinate relationships, we examined how mutual trust between supervisor and subordinate is associated with work outcomes. Based on a sample of 247 subordinate–supervisor pairs, multilevel analyses revealed a positive effect of perceived mutual trust on task performance and interpersonal facilitation after controlling for trust in leader and felt trust. In addition, task performance and interpersonal facilitation increased as trust in leader and felt trust or trust in subordinate both increased.     

Corporate Psychopaths,Conflict, Employee Affective Well-Being and Counterproductive Work Behaviour

This article explains who Corporate Psychopaths are, and some of the processes by which they stimulate counterproductive work behaviour among employees. The article hypothesizes that conflict and bullying will be higher, that employee affective well-being will be lower and that frequencies of counterproductive work behaviour will also be higher in the presence of Corporate Psychopaths. Research was conducted among 304 respondents in Britain in 2011, using a psychopathy scale embedded in a self-completion management survey. The article concludes that Corporate Psychopaths have large and significant impacts on conflict and bullying and employee affective well-being; these have large and significant impacts on counterproductive work behaviour. There is no difference between male and female degrees of negative reaction to the presence of managers who are Corporate Psychopaths.     

Relationships Among Employee Perception of Their Manager’s Behavioral Integrity, Moral Distress, and Employee Attitudes and Well-Being

Hypothesized relationships among reports by employees of moral distress, their perceptions of their manager’s behavioral integrity (BI), and employee reports of job satisfaction, stress, job engagement, turnover likelihood, absenteeism, work-to-family conflict, health, and life satisfaction were tested using data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (n = 2,679). BI was positively related to job satisfaction, job engagement, health, and life satisfaction and negatively to stress, turnover likelihood, and work-to-family conflict, while moral distress was inversely related to those outcomes. The magnitudes of relationships with job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction were greater with BI than with moral distress. Moral distress mediated the relationships between BI and the employee outcomes, supporting the view that employee’s perceptions of their manager’s BI might influence the employee’s behaviors as well as their attitudes.     

Perceived Behavioral Integrity: Relationships with Employee Attitudes, Well-Being, and Absenteeism

Relationships between the behavioral integrity of managers as perceived by employees and employee attitudes (job satisfaction and life satisfaction), well-being (stress and health), and behaviors (absenteeism) were tested using data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (n = 2,820). Using multivariate and univariate analysis, perceived behavioral integrity (PBI) was positively related to job and life satisfaction and negatively related to stress, poor health, and absenteeism. The effect size for the relationship with job satisfaction was medium-to-large while the effect sizes with respect to the other variables were small-to-medium. There was no support for the hypotheses that women would perceive lower levels of behavioral integrity and that the strength of the relationships between PBI and the outcomes variables would be stronger among women than among men.     

Apologies and Transformational Leadership

This empirical investigation showed that contrary to the popular notion that apologies signify weakness, the victims of mistakes made by leaders consistently perceived leaders who apologized as more transformational than those who did not apologize. In a field experiment (Study 1), male referees who were perceived as having apologized for mistakes made officiating hockey games were rated by male coaches (n = 93) as more transformational than when no apology was made. Studies 2 (n = 50) and 3 (n = 224) replicated this effect in two vignette studies to enhance internal and ecological validity. Contrary to expectations in Study 3, there were no apology×leader gender interactions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Trickle-Down Effects of Perceived Leader Integrity on Employee Creativity: A Moderated Mediation Model

This study explored the relationship between the integrity of the supervisor and the manager (i.e., the supervisor’s immediate superior) and the creativity of employees who are below the supervisor. Drawing on social learning theory, we proposed a moderated mediation model for the trickle-down effects of perceived supervisor integrity. Using a sample of 716 employees and their supervisors, we found positive associations between both managers’ and supervisors’ integrity and employee creativity. Supervisors’ integrity partially mediates the relationship between managers’ integrity and employee creativity. In addition, supervisors’ perceptions of professional ethical standards moderate the indirect effects of the managers’ integrity on employee creativity. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Art and Artifice in Public Apologies

The purpose of this article is threefold: to examine the elements of an artful apology; to sequence them in a comprehensive configuration; and to use the taxonomy for assessing the effect of public apologies. The model identifies seven sequential components of an apology: revelation, recognition, responsiveness, responsibility, remorse, restitution, and reform. Also included in the model are four deflective stratagems: dissociation, diminution, dispersion, and detachment. Analysis focuses on actual offense situations rather than artificial simulated settings. Specifically, the study examines whether seven well-publicized apologies conform to the proposed construct. These public figures include Alec Baldwin, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Gerald Levin, Iris Robinson, Tiger Woods, and Mark Zuckerberg. The article closes with suggestions to direct future research.     

Impact of Leader Racial Attitude on Ratings of Causes and Solutions for an Employee of Color Shortage

Diversity scholars have emphasized the critical role of corporate leaders for ensuring the success of diversity strategic initiatives in organizations. This study reports on business school leaders’ attributions regarding the causes for and solutions to the low representation of U.S. faculty of color in business schools. Results indicatethat leaders with greater awareness of racial issues rated an inhospitable organizational culture as a more important cause and cultural change and recruitment as more important solutions to faculty of color under-representation than did less racially aware respondents. Aware leaders also rated individual minority-group member responsibility for performance a less important solution than did less racially aware respondents. Implications are discussed. E. Holly Buttner is Professor of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, NC, USA. Her research interests include diversity in organizations, leadership assessment and entrepreneurship. She co-authored  Women Entrepreneurs: Moving Beyond the Glass Ceiling. She teaches courses in Diversity in Organizations, Organizational Behavior, and in Leadership Assessment and Development at the undergraduate and MBA levels. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kevin B. Lowe is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, NC, USA. His research interests include leadership, international human resource management and cross cultural management. He received his Ph.D. at Florida International University.     

Fostering Constructive Deviance by Leader Moral Humility: The Mediating Role of Employee Moral Identity and Moderating Role of Normative Conflict

Journal of Business Ethics - Constructive deviance, rule-breaking to benefit the organization, is an emerging topic in the scholarly research and is considered to be an ethical decision. Despite...     

Countering Employee Crime

Theft, grievances and absenteeism show the need to examine mutual loyalty and establish a'win-win'policy.     

Employee satisfaction and long-run shareholder returns

This study empirically tests whether there are differences in the employee satisfaction premium among people- and possession-processing service firms, information-processing service firms, and goods-producing firms. The employee satisfaction premium is measured using the long-run abnormal returns of firms with high employee satisfaction ratings, adjusted for industry and size effects. Results show that the employee satisfaction premium is higher for information-processing services than for people- and possession-processing services. There is no significant difference between people- and possession-processing service firms and goods-producing firms. This finding suggests that employee satisfaction may create higher value for shareholders when it is realised through information-processing services rather than people- and possession-processing services.     

企业职业生涯规划和员工幸福指数相关性研究

<正>员工工作生活质量(Quality of Work’slife)要从两个方面来衡量,一是从组织的角度看,也就是从客观的角度看,组织有没有给员工提供良好的工作环境,有没有给员工提供宽裕的工作空间,有没有给员工设计合理的工作     

Echoes of Silence: Employee Silence as a Mediator Between Overall Justice and Employee Outcomes

Despite burgeoning interest in employee silence, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of (a) the antecedents of employee silence in organizations and (b) the implications of engaging in silence for employees. Using two experimental studies (Study 1a, N = 91; Study 1b, N = 152) and a field survey of full-time working adults (Study 2, N = 308), we examined overall justice as an antecedent of acquiescent (i.e., silence motivated by futility) and quiescent silence (i.e., silence motivated by fear of sanctions). Across the studies, results indicated that overall justice is a significant predictor of both types of silence in organizations. Furthermore, Study 2 indicated that the implications of silence extend beyond the restriction of information flow in organizations to include employee outcomes. Specifically, acquiescent silence partially or fully mediated the relationship between overall justice perceptions and emotional exhaustion, psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and performance. Quiescent silence partially mediated these relationships, with the exception of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for both the justice and silence literatures are discussed.