When Servant Leaders Inspire Followers to Become Organizational Citizens? Empirical Evidence From Vietnam

Nguyen Phan Hanh Thao,Seung-Wan Kang

doi:10.1177/2158244019900184

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the existing servant leadership literature, especially at the individual level of analysis in new settings, by examining the potential joint effects of servant leadership, dyadic duration, and job self-efficacy, with organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) as the dependent variable. We, after analyzing survey data from 148 leader–follower dyads collected from an engineering venture, find that dyadic duration is a significant moderator of the relationship between servant leadership and OCB. Furthermore, the moderating effect of dyadic duration on the relationship between servant leadership and OCB depends on job self-efficacy, such that the interaction effect is neutralized when job self-efficacy is high rather than low. The findings about interactive effects can provide useful information that will help to better deploy servant leadership in organizations to create positive follower outcomes.

Highlights

A number of studies have recognized the capability of servant leaders to create benefits for individuals, teams, and organizations
This article proposes a further investigation of the relationship between servant leadership and follower organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) to fill gaps in the literature, notably by integrating the potential effect of time and follower job selfefficacy into the hypothesized model based on social exchange theory
We examined a model of simple moderation with dyadic duration as a moderator and found a significant impact of dyadic duration on the relationship between servant leadership and follower OCB

Summary

Introduction

A number of studies have recognized the capability of servant leaders to create benefits for individuals, teams, and organizations (see Eva et al, 2019 for a review). This article proposes a further investigation of the relationship between servant leadership and follower OCB to fill gaps in the literature, notably by integrating the potential effect of time (i.e., dyadic duration) and follower job selfefficacy into the hypothesized model based on social exchange theory. By investigating these issues, we seek to provide an in-depth understanding of the development of the servant leader–follower relationship, by further investigating the link between servant leader behaviors and follower OCB over time and determining which followers are more likely to exhibit OCB when working with servant leaders

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