The Influence of Authentic Leadership on the Voice Behavior of Young People in China : Assessing the Mediating Role of Relational Identification and the Moderating Role of Affective Commitment

Abstract

One of the most important factors to maintain and improve competitiveness is to encourage voice behavior of an organization’s members. Leaders have an responsibility to create an atmosphere for members to express their own views freely, and to encourage members to improving the organization’s function. To fully understand the influence process of authentic leadership on members voice behavior, we argue that the affective commitment should be considered. We posit that authentic leadership positively influence affective identification, supportive voice behavior, challenging voice behavior, and affective commitment moderate the effect of relationship identification on voice behavior. Data from 367 respondents supported most of our hypotheses. Targeting the general workers in Beijing, China, we examine a mediated model of authentic leadership, voice behavior, and relational identification, with affective commitment as a moderator. We conducted an empirical analysis using the collected data and concluded based on the results of the study. First, our results confirmed that authentic leadership have a positive influence on both supportive voice behavior and challenging voice behavior. Second, relational identification partially mediated the interaction between authentic leadership and voice behavior. No significant indirect effect was found between authentic leadership and supportive voice behavior. Our results also showed that affective commitment has as a moderating role in the relationship of affective identification and member voice behavior. Members with high affective commitment showed more supportive voice behaviors than those with low affective commitment. This study advances prior research on the relationship of authentic leadership and voice behavior by demonstrating how the affective commitment level of individuals has different effects on their voice behavior. Finally, we presented the implications of this research and recommendations for future research.