High Power Distance Culture Research Articles

Directive vs. Commissive Illocutionary Acts?

Governments sometimes release information implicitly, and citizens have to understand their illocutionary acts. The present study examines when and how illocutionary acts encourage citizens to disseminate government information. Based on the Speech Act Theory, Study 1 demonstrates that commissive illocutionary acts make citizens in a low-power distance culture more likely to disseminate information. In contrast, directive illocutionary acts make citizens in a high-power distance culture more likely to disseminate information. Study 2 confirms the underlying mechanism of perceived social exchange relationship by looking at the interaction effects between illocutionary acts and power distance perception in a single cultural setting. By crawling 10,000 government microblogs, Study 3 provides objective evidence for the interaction between illocutionary acts and power distance perception on citizens dissemination behavior of information. Finally, we discuss theoretical implications for government information dissemination, managerial implications, and future research directions.

The age of leadership: Meta‐analytic findings on the relationship between leader age and perceived leadership style and the moderating role of culture and industry type

AbstractManagers' leadership style has a substantial impact on employee and organizational outcomes. In the present study, we consider the role of leaders’ chronological age in predicting followers’ perceptions of their leadership style. Whereas ample research uncovers relationships between individuals’ age and how these individuals are perceived by others, little is known about how leaders’ chronological age impacts others’ perceptions of their style. Even less is known about how such relationships vary across cultures and industries. We conducted a meta‐analysis (164 unique studies; N = 397,456 observations) to explore these relationships, using the Full‐Range leadership model. We found that leader age was negatively related to perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership, and positively related to perceptions of passive leadership. Further, some of these effects varied on several cultural dimensions: The negative relationship between leader age and transformational leadership was weaker in collectivistic cultures, while the negative relationship with transactional leadership was stronger in high power distance cultures. Industry type also mattered: the relationship between leader age and both transformational and contingent reward leadership styles was amplified in the public sector. Lastly, perceptions of older leaders were more negative when ratings were provided by followers rather than the leaders themselves. Our findings offer both theoretical and practical implications for leading in an increasingly age‐diverse workforce, such as better informing the workforce of present age stereotypes and their imminent effect on organizations.

An exploratory study of critical incidents within public organizations during leadership change

Background Leadership changes within public organizations are often associated with achieving the organization’s vision. This exploratory study examines critical incidents and the anxiety experienced by the head of the department at the local government in the context of leadership change in the public organization. It explores anxiety, which has rarely been explored in connection with leadership change, especially with regard to public organizations and countries with a high-power distance culture. Thus, it comprehensively describes the sources, course, and consequences of anxiety due to leadership change. Methods Critical incident technique (CIT) was used to conduct analysis because of its suitability as a theoretical framework for the exploratory nature of this research. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews from 26 informants who served as heads of departments in cities. Results The findings revealed the causes, course, and consequence of the anxiety experienced in response to leadership change. Political choice, culture change, policy change, fear of loss, and unaccountable financing were identified as sources of anxiety. Anxiety manifested through negative, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. The consequences were divided into in-circle, out-circle, and ambivalence-circle participation. Conclusions High-power distance culture causes leaders to portray hegemony with boundaries that are difficult to access as well as appear more directive to strengthen control within the organization. The integrated model presented here (causes, course, and consequences of anxiety) is expected to enrich the integrated, modern, and emotional science through a functional account of the emotional approach. Cognitive and affective reactions have a two-way relationship, wherein emotion influences cognition and cognition elicits emotion.

Psychological empowerment an antecedent to career satisfaction: modeling affective commitment as a mediator and resilience as a moderator

PurposeThe study, grounded on the social cognitive career theory, seeks to analyze the upshot of psychological empowerment on career satisfaction via affective commitment. The study also aims to examine the impact of the interplay among affective commitment and resilience on the career satisfaction of Indian service industry professionals.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the data has been collected from 277 employees using standardized measures from the North Indian service industry. To test the proposed model, Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) (Hayes, 2013) was utilized.FindingsThe outcomes of the study offered substantial support for the theorized link between psychological empowerment, affective commitment, resilience and career satisfaction. The outcomes confirmed an affirmative association concerning psychological empowerment and career satisfaction through affective commitment as a mediator and resilience as a moderator. The study concludes that the workforce with extraordinary resilience will perceive a stronger influence of psychological empowerment on career satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe study offers a few pertinent inputs for the organizations operating in high-power distance culture to comprehend the role of psychological empowerment and “resilient attributes” of personality in developing a sense of career satisfaction amongst Indian service sector employees.Originality/valueThe present research examines the association between psychological empowerment, affective commitment, resilience and career satisfaction for the first time as mediated moderation model and the same has neither been examined theoretically or empirically.

CEO cultural heritage and R&D expenditures

AbstractThis paper examines how the cultural heritage of chief executive officers (CEOs) in US firms affects research and development (R&D) investment. Utilizing economically significant and unexpected R&D‐increasing events, we examine how six dimensions of CEO cultural heritage—individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation, and indulgence—influence it. We find that CEOs with a high–power distance heritage are more likely to increase R&D. We confirm that this effect of CEO power distance is robust to other cultural effects, the model specification, and endogeneity issues. We conjecture that CEOs with a high–power distance heritage are more likely to increase R&D expenditures because they use their power to pursue personal objectives. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that R&D increases made by CEOs with a high–power distance culture generate significantly lower benefits in the future, reflecting the inefficiency of these R&D investment decisions.

An investigation on the relationship of abusive supervision with knowledge hiding and organizational deviance: The mediating roles of employee silence and negative affectivity

BACKGROUND: Sharing of knowledge and positive workplace behavior by employees are perquisites for the success of every organization. The present study realized the significance of knowledge sharing and positive behavior in a country like India where high-power distance culture is prevalent. OBJECTIVE: The present research aimed to investigate the influence of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding and employee organizational deviance. In addition mediating roles negative affectivity and employee silence were alsotested. METHODS: Data was gathered from 420 employees working in a service organization in India. SPSS vs. 23 and Amos vs. 24 were used for data analysis purposes. The techniques of SEM were applied to test the proposed hypotheses in the present research. RESULTS: The study found the positive and significant influence of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding, but the insignificant influence of abusive supervision on employee organizational deviance. The results also reflected the full mediating role of negative affectivity but the partial intervening or mediating role of employee silence between the relationships of abusive supervision with knowledge hiding and employees’ organizational deviance. CONCLUSION: The study suggested the management introduce various measures to reduce abusive supervision leading to negative consequences.

Seen and Heard: Combining In-Depth Interviewing With Social Messaging to Study the Lived Experiences of Gifted Youth in High Power Distance Cultures

Qualitative research with gifted youth presents unique challenges because of their tendency to display qualities such as perfectionism, overexcitability, and asynchronous development. Studying gifted youth in cultural contexts marked by high power distance between young people and adults can further compound these challenges by limiting gifted youths’ feelings of psychological safety during data collection. As a result, gifted youth often withhold information or give perceived culturally appropriate answers to adult researchers’ queries. Drawing on a larger phenomenological study of the formation of self-concept among eight Malaysian gifted youth aged between 18 and 25 years old, this article describes how an innovative application of combining semi-structured interviews with WhatsApp social messaging diaries helped minimize the power imbalance between the researcher and youth participants. The paper describes the unique methodological strategy of combining in-depth phenomenological interviews with WhatsApp diary entries to collect data from a hard-to-reach population. Specific techniques employed included using a conversational interview style, self-disclosing personal information to build trust, and validating participants’ feelings and experiences are discussed. Open-ended WhatsApp diary prompts and an extended time provided a sense of anonymity which allowed participants to recall their past and discuss sensitive experiences. Combining these techniques facilitated in-depth exploration into the lived experiences and challenges of being gifted, and how giftedness shaped participants’ self-concept. This is the first known study to document the use of social messaging applications as an effective journaling method for creating a familiar and safe space for special needs groups in high power distance cultures to share their experiences and feelings.

Formal versus informal supervisor socio‐emotional support behaviours and employee trust: The role of cultural power distance

AbstractThis research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect‐ and cognition‐based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in‐depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust‐enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect‐ and cognition‐based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, formal support behaviours only increased cognition‐based trust. Study 3 conceptually replicated those findings by manipulating power distance in an organization. Together, the findings from these three studies suggest that supervisors' formal socio‐emotional support behaviours are particularly effective in increasing affect‐based trust in societal and organizational cultures that are high power distance.

Prioritizing Safety Climate Improvements in the Indonesian Construction Industry Using Supervised Classification

Despite its significance, the Indonesian construction industry has poor safety performance. Improving the safety climate has been seen as a way to improve safety in the industry. Research on safety climate in this context has identified a range of safety climate factors that require improvements. However, construction organizations face difficulties in implementing improvement recommendations due to resource constraints. In order to help construction organizations in their efforts to improve the safety climate, this research demonstrates the use of supervised classification approaches to identify specific safety climate factors that construction organizations should focus on. Data were collected from 311 construction practitioners in Indonesia using a 22-item safety climate survey. Supervised classification methods, comprising ensemble methods, Support Vector Machine, Naïve Bayes, and Nearest Neighbor, were used. The analysis identified 14 safety climate items that can represent the original dataset with high accuracy (93%). These 14 items can be considered crucial items that should be prioritized in the Indonesian construction industry. These items revealed that, due to the high power distance culture in Indonesia, top-down approaches, such as giving clear instructions, providing training, and reminding people often about safety, are effective for engaging employees to focus on and participate in safety. The findings also suggest that understanding cultural context is important to determine effective strategies to improve safety. This research has also demonstrated the potential application of supervised classification approaches to help decision makers improve safety by focusing on crucial factors within a context.

Local Heroes Leadership: A Key for Nurturing Climate Village Program Initiatives in High Power Distance Culture (Case Study in Talangbubuk South Sumatera)

Local Heroes Leadership: A Key for Nurturing Climate Village Program Initiatives in High Power Distance Culture (Case Study in Talangbubuk South Sumatera)

Assessing the Connections among Top Management Support, IT Assimilation, and the Business Value of IT: A Meta-Analysis

Scholars and practitioners have long tried to understand the antecedents and consequences of information technology (IT) assimilation. Studies suggest that top management support is an important driver of IT assimilation; however, this broad takeaway provides little substantive guidance to researchers and practitioners. We also have a limited understanding of whether and when IT assimilation creates business value. We take stock of this literature with a meta-analysis. We found that top management support is positively related to IT assimilation, and assimilation is in turn positively related to the business value of IT. We also found that explicit support does not have any special effect on IT assimilation (compared to implicit support) and may not be related to business value at all. However, our results indicate that IT assimilation has a stronger effect on business value at the process level (versus firm level) and for enterprise IT innovations (versus function IT innovations). Finally, we found that support-assimilation and assimilation-value relationships are stronger in high (versus low) power distance cultures. Our collective findings can facilitate future research and help practitioners navigate IT assimilation initiatives.

Power Distance, Collectivism and Corruption: An Analysis Using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Index and Corruption Perception Index

Purpose – Among the many factors affecting corruption, cultural factors cannot be overlooked. This study examines if there is any relationship between culture and corruption. For this purpose, Hofstede’s cultural dimension index and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 116 countries were used. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study used secondary data published by two institutions: Hofstede Insights and Transparency International. First, the latest Power Distance Index (PDI) and Individualism Index (IDV) of 116 countries were obtained from Hofstede Insights. Second, the latest 2021 CPI of 116 countries was gained from Transparency International. Two hypotheses were developed. To examine the relationship between the variables, a correlation analysis was adopted. Findings – According to the analysis results, hypothesis 1 received statistical support indicating more corruption tends to occur in countries with high power distance culture. Hypothesis 2 is also accepted that more corruption occurs in countries with a strong collectivism culture. Research Implications – The result of this study implies that centralization of power into the higher echelons may hinder effective communication within organization, and often leads to strategic decision-making errors and even corruption. In addition, excessive in-group collectivism is an obstacle to monitoring and blocking internally generated corruption and sometimes demands individual sacrifice.

Employment protection and corporate risk-taking

This paper examines how employment protection laws affect corporate risk-taking. Using a sample of 19,335 firms from 27 OECD countries over the period 2002–2018, we find that strong employment protection legislation reduces corporate risk-taking. Moreover, the effect of employment protection legislation on corporate risk-taking is stronger in countries of high uncertainty avoidance culture and weaker in countries of high power distance culture.

Unravelling the mechanism between despotic leadership and psychological distress: the roles of bullying behavior and hostile attribution bias

PurposeHealthcare workers are considered to be the most vulnerable to face mental health. Therefore, this paper aims to examine how negative leadership (despotic leadership) affects employees' psychological distress. Specifically, the authors investigated bullying behavior as mediating mechanism and hostile attribution bias as boundary condition that trigger psychological distress.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 252 nurses and their immediate supervisors (as a coping strategy for common method bias) through “Google Forms” from various public and private hospitals.FindingsThe authors applied structural equation modeling and noted that despotic leadership positively affects employees' psychological distress through bullying behavior. In addition, hostile attribution bias is identified as an important factor in amplifying the effect of bullying behavior on psychological distress.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors collected data from high-power distance culture where negative leadership is more prevalent as compared to low-power distance culture. Their findings suggest management to discourage self-centered leaders (despotic) and employees with negative personality traits (hostile attribution bias) as these affect their mental health.Originality/valueDrawing upon conservation of resources theory, this study is the first of its kind that has investigated how and when despotic leadership affects employees' psychological distress. In addition, the authors also highlighted the importance of negative personality traits (hostile attribution bias) that can amplify the association between bullying behavior and psychological distress.

Shaping the leadership configuration of principals and vice-principals: The principal socialising agent

This article examines how principals socially construct the leadership configuration of principals and vice-principals in Singapore and what factors influenced the principal's shaping of this configuration. The qualitative study, involving the interview of 10 principals, sought to understand how principals made sense of their vice-principals roles vis-a-vis their own roles, as well as what influenced their perspectives. Coding involved a mix of codes from the literature and grounded from the interviews. Findings revealed that principals perceived themselves as the main and final decision maker, guarding certain responsibilities, and needing to be in the know. They perceived the vice-principal's role to be mainly a supporting role, while simultaneously expecting the latter to challenge the principal's thinking. Principals varied in how they include vice-principals in work perceived as more the principal's responsibility. A high-power distance culture and the principals’ own induction and experiences as vice-principals shaped the principals’ crafting of the leadership configuration. The study highlights the principals’ role as a community in reproducing the type of vice-principals that the system values, raising a concern that bounded empowerment limits the leadership and growth of vice-principals. However, there is some evidence that principals’ agency can counter predominant socialising forces.

The Benefits and Detriments of Leader Narcissism: A Meta-Analysis Based on Agentic-Communal Framework

Researchers have adopted several approaches to reconcile the mix findings of leader narcissism. This study offers an agentic-communal framework to synthetize the dual character of leader narcissism via meta-analysis. With 63 independent studies and 13221 leader samples, we elucidate the duality of leader narcissism by demonstrating that leader narcissism facilitates charismatic leadership while decreases communal-related effectiveness. Charismatic leadership and communal-related variables indirect the positive and negative effects of leader narcissism on more distal outcomes (i.e., follower performance and leader effectiveness), respectively. Also, employees in high power distance cultures perceived a stronger positive relationship between narcissistic leaders and charismatic leadership, whereas low power distance cultures embraced a stronger negative relationship between narcissistic leaders and communal outcomes. Lastly, we demonstrate the incremental validity of leader narcissism by comparing it with leader self-esteem, with the results that leader narcissism has incremental validity on charismatic leadership perceptions beyond leader self-esteem, but they exhibit opposite relationships with communal effectiveness. These findings demonstrate the utility of agentic-communal framework for understanding the duality of leader narcissism.

Pathways to Positive Youth Development in Malaysian Undergraduate Co-curricular Programs: A Moderated Mediation Model of Youth Voice and Psychological Hardiness.

Youth voice is gaining more attention globally as a core feature of program quality within positive youth development programs. Few studies have examined the relationship between youth voice and positive youth development in high power-distance cultures, however, where young people often face psychological barriers to exercising decision-making in their work with program adults. Research is needed on the psychological mechanisms that might help youth thrive within settings that are less structurally and psychologically supportive of youth voice. Drawing on bioecological systems and hardiness theories, this quantitative correlational study evaluates the moderating effect of psychological hardiness on the relationship between youth voice, the mediators of program safety and engagement, and the 6 C’s of positive youth development. A moderated mediation model was tested among 436 first-year undergraduate co-curricular program participants from public universities in Malaysia (M = 21.192 years, SD = 1.191 years; 65.6% female). Youth voice positively predicted positive youth development; the relationship was partially mediated by program engagement, but not safety. The mediated pathway through program engagement was more predictive for hardier youth. By combining programmatic and individual psychological factors into the hypothesized model, this research identifies the potential importance of hardiness on the practice of youth voice for young adults in high power distance cultures. The findings highlight the need to identify other individual and programmatic factors that may contribute to the development of positive youth development in diverse cultural settings.

Zooming into paternalistic leadership: evidence from high power distance culture

PurposeNurses' turnover intention has become a major issue in developing countries with high power distance cultures. Therefore, the authors attempt to investigate how turnover intention among nurses' can be reduced through paternalistic leadership (PL). The authors further investigate the mediating role of job satisfaction between the associations of benevolent, moral and authoritarian dimensions of PL with turnover intention. Finally, the authors examined perceived organizational support (POS) as a conditional variable between job satisfaction and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 374 nurses working in public and private hospitals of high power distance culture using a questionnaire-based survey on convenience basis.FindingsStructural equation modeling confirms that benevolent and moral dimensions of PL positively affect nurses' job satisfaction which helps them reduce their turnover intention. While the authoritarian dimension of PL negatively affects job satisfaction to further enhance their turnover intention. In addition, the authors noted POS as a conditional variable to trigger the negative effect of job satisfaction on turnover intention.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors used a cross-sectional design to collect responses and ensured the absence of common method variance through Harman's Single factor test.Originality/valueThis study identified the mechanism (job satisfaction and POS) through which benevolent, moral and authoritative dimensions of PL predict turnover intention among nurses working in high power distance culture.

How abusive supervision affect knowledge hiding? The mediating role of employee silence and moderating role of psychological ownership

PurposeThis study aims to investigate how abusive supervisor affects knowledge hiding (KH). Specifically, this study investigates employee silence as a mediating mechanism between abusive supervision and employees’ KH. Further, psychological ownership is examined as a buffer between abusive supervision and employee silence.Design/methodology/approachKH has become a major issue for both manufacturing and service sectors. Therefore, this study collected data from 322 employees working in manufacturing and service sectors through “Google Forms” during COVID-19. The respondents were contacted through LinkedIn platform between January and July 2021.FindingsThis study noted that when employees working in high-power distance cultures perceive their leaders/supervisors as abusive, they avoid confrontation and engage in silent behavior, which positively affects their KH behavior. However, employees with a high level of psychological ownership are less likely to respond to their abusive supervisors through silence because such employees feel a greater sense of belongingness and prefer to benefit their organization.Research limitations/implicationsThis study used a cross-sectional design that restricts causality. However, the findings of this study suggest management to focus on leadership style to minimize KH at the workplace.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the underlying mechanism (employee silence) and boundary condition (psychological ownership) to explain the association between abusive supervision and KH.

Empowering leadership and behavioural support for change: the moderating role of a diverse climate

PurposeMembers' behaviour to support change is a critical factor in organisational change. Building on social cognitive theory, this research investigates how empowering leadership (EL) contributes to behavioural support for change in higher education. The paper argues that the relationship between EL and behavioural support for change is moderated by diversity climate.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypotheses, 107 colleges from the highest-ranking 11 universities in Indonesia, consisting of 1,634 faculties, participated in this study.FindingsMembers would experience higher support for change with EL. Furthermore, the positive relationship between EL and behavioural support for change was stronger in members who perceived a more diverse climate.Originality/valueThis study empirically tested how behaviour to support change was determined by leaders' empowering behaviour based on social cognitive theory in a high-power distance culture. In terms of its methodological contributions, this study used a multi-level analysis in order to test EL. Finally, the research on behavioural support for change has been expanded upon through a unit-level analysis.