Ethical leadership,organizational identification and employee voice: examining moderated mediation process in the Chinese insurance industry

This study examines the link between ethical leadership and employee voice behaviour by focusing on the mediating role of organizational identification and the moderating role of organizational trust. The results of distinctive data from 293 supervisors–follower pairs in an insurance group from the People's Republic of China reveal that ethical leadership positively relates to employee voice behaviour, and that organization identification fully mediates the positive influence of ethical leadership on employee voice behaviour. We also found that organization trust moderates the relationship between the organization identification and employee voice. Furthermore, the mediating effect between ethical leadership and employee voice is moderated by organizational trust, that is to say moderated mediation. We discuss implications of these findings for research and practice.     

Authoritarian leadership and task performance: The effects of leader-member exchange and dependence on leader

This study examines how and when authoritarian leadership affects subordinates’ task performance. Using social exchange theory and power dependence theory, this study proposes that authoritarian leadership negatively influences task performance through leader-member exchange (LMX). This study further proposes that the effect of authoritarian leadership on LMX is stronger when a subordinate has less dependence on a leader. A two-wave survey was conducted in a large electronics and information enterprise group in China. These hypotheses are supported by results based on 219 supervisor-subordinate dyads. The results reveal that authoritarian leadership negatively affects subordinates’ task performance via LMX. Dependence on leader buffers the negative effect of authoritarian leadership on LMX and mitigates the indirect effect of authoritarian leadership on employee task performance through LMX. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.     

为何中国员工偏好沉默——威权领导对员工建言的消极影响

采用问卷调查方式收集了66名领导与其286名下属的配对样本,运用层级回归的方法,探讨了威权领导对员工建言的影响及其作用机制。结果表明,威权领导和员工权力距离都对员工建言存在显著的负向预测效应。另外,员工权力距离还会调节威权领导对员工建言的效应,当员工权力距离较高时,威权领导与员工建言间的关系较弱。最后,员工心理授权部分中介威权领导、员工权力距离对员工建言的影响,完全中介威权领导和员工权力距离的交互项对员工建言的影响。这些研究结果有助于理解中国传统领导行为对员工建言的影响以及影响的中介机制和边界条件,具有重要的理论意义和实践意义。     

Innovating under stress: The role of commitment and leader-member exchange

This study sheds light on the relationships between workplace stressors and employee innovation by jointly considering mediating processes and boundary conditions. Using the challenge-hindrance model, we combine social exchange and conservation of resources theory to propose that challenge (i.e., role overload) and hindrance (i.e., role ambiguity and role conflict) stressors exert positive and negative indirect effects, respectively, on employee innovation through affective organizational commitment. We further posit that the strength of these relationships depends on the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX). In support of these predictions, a time-lagged study of 134 employees from various Canadian firms found affective commitment to mediate the differential relationships of challenge and hindrance stressors to employee innovation. Moreover, when LMX was high, the positive effects of role overload were enhanced while the negative effects of role ambiguity and role conflict were attenuated. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.     

Ethical Leadership Evaluations After Moral Transgression: Social Distance Makes the Difference

In light of continuing corporate scandals, the study of ethical leadership remains an important area of research which helps to understand the antecedents and consequences of ethical behavior in organizations. The present study investigates how social distance influences ethical leadership evaluations, and how in turn ethical leadership evaluations affect leader–member exchange (LMX) after a leader’s moral transgression. Based on construal level theory, we propose that higher social distance will lead to more severe evaluations of immoral behavior and therefore entail lower ethical leadership ratings. More- over, we hypothesize that ethical leadership will positively affect LMX. Participants read a scenario describing a moral situation in which a leader, who was presented in either high or low social distance, behaves unethically toward an employee. We tested our predictions using a structural equation modeling approach. As expected, participants in the high social distance condition judged leaders more harshly (i.e., they gave lower ethical leadership ratings) than in the low social distance condition. Thus, social distance moderated the extent to which leaders are perceived as ethical leaders after moral transgression. Moreover, in accordance with our proposition, ethical leadership ratings had a positive influence on LMX.     

Leaders’ Personal Wisdom and Leader–Member Exchange Quality: The Role of Individualized Consideration

Business scholars have recently proposed that the virtue of personal wisdom may predict leadership behaviors and the quality of leader–follower relationships. This study investigated relationships among leaders’ personal wisdom—defined as the integration of advanced cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics (Ardelt, Hum Dev 47:257–285, 2004)—transformational leadership behaviors, and leader–member exchange (LMX) quality. It was hypothesized that leaders’ personal wisdom positively predicts LMX quality and that intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, two dimensions of transformational leadership, mediate this relationship. Data came from 75 religious leaders and 1–3 employees of each leader (N = 158). Results showed that leaders’ personal wisdom had a positive indirect effect on follower ratings of LMX quality through individualized consideration, even after controlling for Big Five personality traits, emotional intelligence, and narcissism. In contrast, intellectual stimulation and the other two dimensions of transformational leadership (idealized influence and inspirational motivation) did not mediate the positive relationship between leaders’ personal wisdom and LMX quality. Implications for future research on personal wisdom and leadership are discussed, and some tentative suggestions for leadership development are outlined.     

How is Benevolent Leadership Linked to Employee Creativity? The Mediating Role of Leader–Member Exchange and the Moderating Role of Power Distance Orientation

Previous research has shown that virtuous leader behavior in the form of benevolent leadership has considerable impact on employee creativity. However, little is known as to how and under what conditions these constructs are linked. In the current research, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model positing leader–member exchange (LMX) as a mediator, and employee power-distance orientation as a moderator of this relationship. Two studies were conducted to test our hypothesized model. In Study 1, repeated measured data collected from 284 Chinese employees in an information technology company demonstrated that benevolent leadership had a lagged effect on LMX. In Study 2, analyses of multisource and lagged data from 391 Chinese employees in 42 research and development teams, and their direct supervisors indicated that benevolent leadership was positively related to supervisor-rated employee creativity via LMX. In addition, the relationship between benevolent leadership and LMX was stronger for employees high in power-distance orientation. Theoretical implications of benevolent leadership’s research and practical contributions concerning promoting creativity in organizations where benevolent leaders prevail are also discussed.     

真实型领导与领导—成员匹配对工作繁荣的影响：社会嵌入视角

工作繁荣是个体成长和进步的标志，已成为组织管理领域日益关注的重要话题。文章从社会嵌入视角出发，探讨了真实型领导与领导-成员匹配对工作繁荣的影响，考察了真实型领导和领导-成员匹配如何通过工作繁荣的传导机制间接影响员工创新行为，并分析了差序氛围的调节效应。通过对200份有效问卷的实证分析表明：真实型领导与领导-成员匹配都对工作繁荣有显著正向影响；工作繁荣显著正向影响员工创新行为；工作繁荣在真实型领导与员工创新行为之间起完全中介作用，在领导-成员匹配与员工创新行为之间也起完全中介作用；差序氛围负向调节了领导-成员匹配对工作繁荣的影响，且负向调节了工作繁荣在领导-成员匹配与员工创新行为间的中介作用。研究结论不仅拓展了中国情境下有关工作繁荣的研究，而且为组织管理者如何促进员工工作繁荣提供了理论指导。     

A Multi-level Investigation of Authentic Leadership as an Antecedent of Helping Behavior

We develop and test a trickle-down model of how authentic leadership at the department level flows down the organizational hierarchy to encourage team leader authentic leadership and consequently, promotes team and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Analyses of multi-level and multi-source data collected from a total of 487 employees comprising 122 teams, 47 departments, and 4 different working areas of a major public sector organization in Taiwan show that team leaders’ authentic leadership mediates the relationship between departmental authentic leadership and individual-level leader–member exchange (LMX). We also found that intra-team trust completely mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on both team helping behavior and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Finally, the results reveal that self-concordance mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on individual-level supervisor helping behavior as well as the influence of individual-level LMX on individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Exploring the Process of Ethical Leadership: The Mediating Role of Employee Voice and Psychological Ownership

The study of ethical leadership has emerged as an important topic for understanding the effects of leadership in organizations. In a study with 845 working adults across multiple organizations, the relationships between ethical leadership with positive employee outcomes were examined. Results suggest that ethical leadership is related to both psychological well-being and job satisfaction in employees, but the processes are different. Employee voice mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and psychological well-being. Feelings of psychological ownership mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction. A discussion of theoretical and practical implications concludes the article.     

Role of authentic leadership and personal mastery in predicting employee creative behavior: A self-determination perspective

Personality dispositions and their role in inducing employee creative behavior are well documented in the literature. However, much is unexplored about the collective and relative contribution of personality orientations and environmental factors in explaining creative behavior. This study used a framework based on selfdetermination theory (SDT) to measure the combined and relative contribution of personal mastery orientation and authentic leadership in predicting employee creative behavior as mediated by autonomous motivation. A self-reported survey was conducted among software developers working in software houses. The results of the study show that both personal mastery and authentic leadership are significant predictors of employee creative behavior. In addition, autonomous motivation significantly mediates the relationship between personal mastery, authentic leadership, and creative behavior. The findings of the study lend support to the combined effect of personality orientation and environmental factors in predicting employee creative behavior and test the SDT framework’s efficacy in predicting creative behavior.     

Impact of Ethical Leadership and Leader–Member Exchange on Whistle Blowing: The Moderating Impact of the Moral Intensity of the Issue

Given the prevalence of corporate frauds and the significance of whistle blowing as a mechanism to report about the frauds, the present study explores the impact of ethical leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX) on whistle blowing. Additionally, the article also explores the moderating role of the moral intensity [studied as magnitude of consequences (MOC)] of the issue on this relationship. The article reports results of three experimental studies conducted on the postgraduate students of a premier technology institute in India. Ethical leadership, LMX, and moral intensity are manipulated through scenarios. Study one (n = 81) manipulates ethical leadership (ethical/unethical) and quality of LMX (low and high) as independent variables; study two (n = 80) manipulates ethical leadership and moral intensity (high and low MOC), and study three (n = 87) manipulates LMX and MOCs to assess their individual and joint effects on whistle blowing. Results show that not only do ethical leadership and LMX predict whistle blowing, but these relationships get moderated by the moral intensity of the issue as well.     

Regional differences in a national culture and their effects on leadership effectiveness: A tale of two neighboring Chinese cities

We argue that regional differences in a large culture influence leadership effectiveness. Studying the differences and their consequences on leader–member exchange (LMX) and the employee performances in two neighboring Chinese cities, our empirical results show significant differences between group supervisors in Hong Kong and those in Shenzhen. Hong Kong supervisors apply the LMX technique more aggressively, and also more successfully than their Shenzhen counterparts in terms of improving employee performance and reducing turnover.     

领导成员交换与员工创造力：情感机制的中介作用

情感是员工创造力的重要前因,而已有文献结论存在不一致,且未深入地探讨影响员工情绪的组织情境因素。文章依据情感事件理论,分析和检验了领导成员交换、积极/消极情感与创造力的关系,以及组织创造力支持感的调节作用。通过分析442对主管〖CD*2〗下属配对样本,结果表明：积极情感和消极情感在领导成员交换与创造力关系之间起部分中介作用;组织创造力支持感正向调节积极情感与创造力的关系,而对消极情感与创造力关系的负向调节作用不显著;最后,高的组织创造力支持感还调节积极/消极情感在领导成员交换与员工创造力关系间的中介作用。     

The Interactive Effect of Authentic Leadership and Leader Competency on Followers’ Job Performance: The Mediating Role of Work Engagement

The effect of authentic leadership and leader competency on employee job performance has received growing attention in the past decades; however, few studies have simultaneously integrated these two leadership perspectives. We have thus developed a mediated moderation model to test the interactive effect of authentic leadership and competency on followers’ job performance through work engagement. Based on a sample of 248 subordinate–supervisor pairs, hierarchical regression analyses reveal that (1) authentic leadership positively relates to followers’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); (2) leader competency moderates the relationship between authentic leadership and OCB; (3) and followers’ work engagement mediates the main effect of authentic leadership and the interactive effect of authentic leadership and competency on followers’ task performance and OCB. All the three results are consistent with our hypotheses.     

A multi-level study on employee voice: Evidence from a chain of retail stores

The objective of this research is to examine the joint influence of both organizational characteristics and individual personality on employee voice. Employing a multi-level design, data from a chain of retail stores were collected for hypothesis testing. A total of 267 employees from 59 stores participated in this study. The results offered support for the individual-level relationships among proactive personality, voice behavior, and individual creative performance. At the store-level, both transformational leadership and supportive peer relations exerted significant effects on voice climate, but not on store performance. In addition, negative cross-level interaction between transformational leadership and proactive personality was found for voice behavior. Lastly, implications for managerial theory and practice are discussed.     

Work Engagement and Machiavellianism in the Ethical Leadership Process

Leaders who express an ethical identity are proposed to affect followers’ attitudes and work behaviors. In two multi-source studies, we first test a model suggesting that work engagement acts as a mediator in the relationships between ethical leadership and employee initiative (a form of organizational citizenship behavior) as well as counterproductive work behavior. Next, we focus on whether ethical leadership always forms an authentic expression of an ethical identity, thus in the second study, we add leader Machiavellianism to the model. For Machiavellian leaders, the publicly expressed identity of ethical leadership is inconsistent with the privately held unethical Machiavellian norms. Literature on surface acting suggests people can at least to some extent pick up on such inauthentic displays, making the effects less strong. We thus argue that the positive effects of ethical leader behavior are likely to be suppressed when leaders are highly Machiavellian. Support for this moderated mediation model was found: The effects of ethical leader behavior on engagement are less strong when ethical leaders are high as opposed to low on Machiavellianism.     

从创新失败中学习与成长：真实型领导对员工的激发机理研究

创新活动充满不确定性、风险性和复杂性,创新失败频繁发生。在此背景下,如何激励员工从失败中学习并成长是学者与管理者关注的焦点。基于社会认知理论和社会学习理论,文章构建“领导-员工心理-员工行为”研究框架,重点探究真实型领导对创新失败情境下员工失败学习行为的影响机制。研究发现：真实型领导能有效激发员工失败学习行为;内部人身份感知、员工韧性分别在真实型领导与员工失败学习行为关系间起部分中介作用,并且构成中介链发挥链式中介作用。研究结论不仅拓展了中国情境下员工从失败中学习与成长的研究,而且为企业如何构建从失败中学习的文化氛围,促进员工学习与创新行为提供了理论指导。     

家长式领导对员工建言行为激励内化机制研究——中庸思维调节下的跨层次分析

员工建言作为角色外组织公民行为,有助于企业规避风险、提升组织绩效与创新绩效,推动组织变革.本文探究建言行为的激励内化过程与机制,考察领导、个体和文化价值观三个层面要素在此过程中的作用效果与范围,并展开实证检验.结果表明: 家长式领导通过上司支持感和心理安全感间接影响员工建言,其中心理安全感是建言行为发生的决定性因素;中庸思维正向调节上司支持感与建言行为之间的关系,高中庸水平的员工更容易在上司支持感的作用下提出促进型建言,而这一调节效应在心理安全感和建言行为的关系中并不显著.本文采用的跨层次研究有助于理解建言行为的触发、认知和决策过程以及建言理论本土文化的适用性.     

Are Authentic Leaders Always Moral? The Role of Machiavellianism in the Relationship Between Authentic Leadership and Morality

Drawing on cognitive moral development and moral identity theories, this study empirically examines the moral antecedents and consequences of authentic leadership. Machiavellianism, an individual difference variable relating to the use of the ‘end justifies the means’ principle, is predicted to affect the link between morality and leadership. Analyses of multi-source, multi-method data comprised case studies, simulations, role-playing exercises, and survey questionnaires were completed by 70 managers in a large public agency, and provide support for our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that Machiavellianism offsets the positive relationship between moral reasoning and authentic leadership. Specifically, we show that when Machiavellianism is high, both the positive relationship between moral reasoning and authentic leadership, and the positive relationship between authentic leadership and moral actions, are reversed. This study offers new insights on the underlying processes contributing to the emergence of leaders’ authentic behavior and moral action. Implications for the moral development of leaders, and directions for improved leadership training are provided.