Evaluating the Impact of Positive Implicit Followership towards Employees’ Feedback-Seeking: Based on the Social Information Processing Perspective

Wei Zhang,Xuejun Wang,Dingnan Xie

doi:10.3390/su132313417

Abstract

Amid the growth of COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs are facing greater uncertainties and pressures to survive because even though they are efficiently managed, their human resource organizations lack a large number of resources and a well-developed training system to foster the sustainable development of employees. Employees are important assets of the company, and their continuous growth and development are keys to the survival of the company. In this context, the individual worker’s assessment of his or her job role and how the assessments drive the employee to exhibit an appropriate proactive work behavior are particularly important. Previous research has typically focused on how organizations and leaders perceive employees but has rarely explored employees’ own implicit followership cognitive states. This study integrates the traits of positive implicit followership of employees, namely, industry trait, enthusiasm trait, and good citizen trait, with perceived supervisor support (PSS) and feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) into one research framework. In this study, 207 valid questionnaires were collected by using offline convenience sampling, and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted. The results show that employees’ industry traits directly and positively influence FSB, while enthusiasm traits and good citizen traits have no direct effect on promoting FSB. In addition, industry trait, enthusiasm trait, and good citizen trait significantly and positively influence PSS, with good citizen trait having the greatest positive effect on PSS. Furthermore, PSS has a significant positive effect on FSB. Finally, PSS was found to mediate between industry traits and FSB. Corresponding to the results of the study, the actions shaping employees’ positive implicit followership cognition and forming a good supportive atmosphere to promote employees’ performance of more feedback-seeking behaviors are recommended.

Highlights

With the development of the COVID-19 epidemic, the uncertainty faced by SMEs is becoming elevated because they are efficiently managed, their human resource organizations lack a large number of resources and a well-developed training system to foster the sustainable development of employees
While this study focuses on the impact outcomes of positive implicit follower theories (IFTs), the main focus is on positive implicit followership of followers
90 people who have worked in the company for 1 year or less accounted for 43.5%, followed by 59 people who have worked for more than 1 year to 3 years or less, who account for 28.5%

Summary

Introduction

With the development of the COVID-19 epidemic, the uncertainty faced by SMEs is becoming elevated because they are efficiently managed, their human resource organizations lack a large number of resources and a well-developed training system to foster the sustainable development of employees. FSB mainly describes the behavior of corporate employees to effectively self-adjust by actively obtaining performance feedback from multiple feedback sources in order to continuously adapt to organizational changes and promote sustainable individual performance [3]. Sy [9] initially suggested the study of implicit follower theories (IFTs) in 2010 [10]. The cognitive model of implicit followership is an implicit perception about a follower who is unable to be located at the conscious point, and this is the fundamental nature of IFT. Such implicit perceptions may influence an individual’s judgment and conduct

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Conclusion