Abstract
The present research seeks to explore how and when leader territorial behavior trickles down to the follower. Relying on social information processing theory, we hypothesize that territorial behavior has a trickle-down effect from leader to follower, and perceived insider status mediates the relationship between leader territorial behavior and follower territorial behavior. Competition climate is supposed to strengthen the effect of leader territorial behavior on perceived insider status. Two hundred and fifty-two dyads data of supervisor–subordinate in Chinese enterprises provided support for our hypotheses. The results suggest that leader territorial behavior is positively related to follower territorial behavior and that follower perceived insider status significantly mediates the relationship. Moreover, competition climate strengthens the negative relationship between leader territorial behavior and perceived insider status as well as the indirect effect of leader territorial behavior on follower territorial behavior via perceived insider status. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.
Highlights
Territorial behavior has been widely discussed in the field of organization and management in recent years (Monaghan and Ayoko, 2019; Singh, 2019; Xu and Li, 2021)
We argued that as a contextual factor in organizations, competition climate serves a critical role that moderates the impact of leader territorial behavior on employees perceived insider status by influencing how individuals understand their relationship with others
Leader territorial behavior was negatively correlated with perceived insider status (γ = −0.25, p < 0.001)
Summary
Territorial behavior has been widely discussed in the field of organization and management in recent years (Monaghan and Ayoko, 2019; Singh, 2019; Xu and Li, 2021). Relatively few studies examined the leader territorial behavior (Gardner et al, 2016; Zhu et al, 2021) Such an omission is surprising given that the supervisor serves as the agent representing the organization (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007) and supervisor territorial behavior may have great influence on the whole organization (Brown and Menkhoff, 2007). Following this logic, it is important to consider whether there will be a trickle-down effect of leader territorial behavior on follower territorial behavior
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