Abstract
PurposeBuilding on conservation of resources theory and unfolding theory of turnover, this paper aims to propose a model of the effects of despotic leadership on employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intention in the hospitality industry. In this model, the authors theorize psychological distress to play an intervening role among the aforesaid linkages.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected in three-waves from 212 employees working in Palestinian restaurants. A covariance-based matrix in structural equation modeling was used to verify the proposed linkages in the study. A marker variable was used to control the common method bias.FindingsThe results showed that despotic leadership has a direct negative effect on job satisfaction and a positive indirect effect on turnover intentions. Besides, psychological distress showed to play significant mediating effects among the aforementioned relationships.Practical implicationsThis study gives insights to the hospitality industry on how despotic leadership can be destructive and lead to negative consequences.Originality/valueThis study is unique, as it is the first study conducted on despotic leadership in a hospitality setting. The study responded to scholarly calls made to enrich the literature pertaining to despotic leadership and its outcomes.
Highlights
To achieve customer loyalty and satisfaction (Kim et al, 2014) and better service delivery in the hospitality industry, it is paramount that there is a quality relationship between hospitality employees and their supervisors (Chon and Zoltan, 2019)
Park and Min (2020) argued that stress is a major factor that is related to hospitality employees’ intention to leave. In this regard and building on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we argue that when employees’ resources in terms of energy and time are more likely to be expended in an effort to deal with psychological distress, this in turn, will push employees to engage in defensive or withdrawal coping strategies, such as developing the intention to leave to shield themselves from further loss of resources (Lapointe et al, 2011)
The results showed that psychological distress mediated the negative impact of despotic leadership on job satisfaction (ß = À0.117, p < 0.01) and the positive impact of despotic leadership on turnover intention (ß = 0.223, p < 0.001)
Summary
To achieve customer loyalty and satisfaction (Kim et al, 2014) and better service delivery in the hospitality industry, it is paramount that there is a quality relationship between hospitality employees and their supervisors (Chon and Zoltan, 2019). As the relationship between the leader and his employees is of utmost importance in the hospitality sector (Yu et al, 2020), hospitality scholars have been interested to show the effects of positive leadership styles on hospitality employees. The cost associated with destructive leadership is estimated at US$23.8bn annually, affecting 13.6% of employees in the USA (Tepper, 2007) Such leadership behaviors are most likely unavoidable in the hospitality industry, where mistreatment of employees is common because of the hierarchical and centralized structures of hospitality organizations (Yu et al, 2020). These leadership styles (e.g. abusive leadership, despotic leadership, etc.) can be very harmful to employees because they are characterized by manipulation, information distortion and corruption (Raja et al, 2020)
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