Multisource Field Study Research Articles

Winning at all costs: An exploration of bottom‐line mentality, Machiavellianism, and organisational citizenship behaviour

AbstractThis study seeks to advance the bottom‐line mentality literature by exploring an antecedent and outcome of employee bottom‐line mentality. We build and test a moderated‐mediation model by arguing that the personality trait of Machiavellianism promotes an employee's adoption of a bottom‐line mentality. Moreover, drawing on trait activation theory, we argue that this relationship is fully activated when the employee perceives that the organisation endorses a bottom‐line mentality. To expand our theoretical model, we also suggest that employee bottom‐line mentality inhibits organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards co‐workers. Lastly, we investigate whether an employee's perception of an organisation's bottom‐line mentality conditionally moderates the indirect effect of Machiavellianism on organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards co‐workers through the mediated mechanism of employee bottom‐line mentality. Our theoretical model is tested across two distinct studies. Study 1, a field study conducted within a variety of organisations, provides evidence for our initial predictions (Hypotheses 1 and 2). Study 2, a multisource field study conducted in multiple industries, replicates and extends the findings from Study 1 by providing evidence for the entire moderated‐mediation model. We find support for our hypothesised model across both studies. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research are identified.

Respectful leadership and followers’ knowledge sharing: A social mindfulness lens

Knowledge sharing is a discretionary act of employees who might see benefits in keeping their knowledge to themselves. We focus on the other-oriented nature of knowledge sharing to outline how respectful leadership as an other-oriented leadership style can enhance followers’ knowledge sharing through its effect on followers’ other-orientedness. Specifically, we propose that respectful leaders increase followers’ social mindfulness—defined as the cognitive (i.e. perspective taking) and affective (i.e. empathic concern) willingness to behave in a way that increases others’ opportunities—which facilitates knowledge sharing. To test our conceptual model, we conducted a three-wave field study with 275 followers, and a multi-source field study with 83 leader-follower dyads. In line with our hypotheses, followers’ perspective taking (Study 1 and 2) and empathic concern (Study 1) mediated the positive effect of respectful leadership on followers’ knowledge sharing. Moreover, perspective taking and empathic concern possessed interactive effects in Study 1, suggesting that the relationship between respectful leadership and followers’ knowledge sharing was strongest when both components of social mindfulness were high. We discuss theoretical implications of the identified motivational pathway and elaborate on implications for practitioners who aim to facilitate knowledge sharing at work.

Dual cognitive pathways to voice quality: Frequent voicers improvise, infrequent voicers elaborate.

We investigate the involvement of Working Memory Capacity (WMC, the cognitive resource necessary for controlled elaborate thinking) in voice behavior (speaking up with suggestions, problems, and opinions to change the organization). While scholars assume voice requires elaborate thinking, some empirical evidence suggests voice might be more automatic. To explain this discrepancy, we distinguish between voice quantity (frequency of voice) and voice quality (novelty and value of voiced information) and propose that WMC is important for voice quality, but less for voice quantity. Furthermore, we propose that frequent voicers rely less on WMC to reach high voice quality than people who voice rarely. To test our ideas, we conducted three studies: a between-participant lab-study, a within-participant experiment, and a multi-source field-study. All studies supported our expectation that voice quantity is unrelated to WMC, and that voice quality is positively related to WMC, but only for those who rarely voice. This indicates that the decision to voice (quantity) might be more automatic and intuitive than often assumed, whereas its value to the organization (quality), relies more on the degree of cognitive elaboration of the voicer. It also suggests that frequent and infrequent voicers use distinct cognitive pathways to voice high-quality information: frequent voicers improvise, while infrequent voicers elaborate.

Negative workplace gossip: Its impact on customer service performance and moderating roles of trait mindfulness and forgiveness

This study investigates why and when perceived negative workplace gossip inhibits targets’ in-role performance in the context of service. Relying on affective events theory, we argue that perceived negative workplace gossip inhibits targets’ customer service performance by eliciting negative mood. Furthermore, we argue that this mediating process is moderated by targets’ trait mindfulness and forgiveness. Specifically, we suggest that target employees who are lower (versus higher) in trait mindfulness are more likely to experience negative mood. In turn, the negative mood only inhibits customer service performance among those who have lower (versus higher) tendency to forgive. Results from a multi-wave, multisource field study provide support for our hypotheses, even while controlling for targets’ emotional exhaustion as an alternative pathway. These findings support the affective events perspective to understand negative workplace gossip and provide a more nuanced view on its consequences.

The trickle-down effects of perceived trustworthiness on subordinate performance.

We study when and why perceptions of trustworthiness trickle down the organizational hierarchy to influence the performance of subordinates. Building on social learning theory, we argue that when supervisors perceive their managers as trustworthy, subordinates are more likely to also perceive their supervisor as trustworthy, which in turn enhances subordinate performance. We further argue that this trickle-down effect of trustworthiness perceptions emerges especially when the manager invites the supervisor to participate in decision-making. Finally, we propose that social learning processes that lead to supervisors exhibiting more trusting behavior toward their subordinates mediate this trickle-down effect. We find support for our predictions across one multisource field study (Study 1) and two experiments (Studies 2 and 3) that both use a yoked design. This research represents the first attempt to examine trickle-down effects related to trustworthiness, its impact on performance, and the mediating mechanisms by which those effects emerge. This research also provides the first empirical evidence about the role that social learning processes play in explaining trickle-down processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Abusive Supervision as a Response to Follower Hostility: A Moderated Mediation Model

How and when does followers’ upward hostile behavior contribute to the emergence of abusive supervision? Although from a normative or ethical point of view, supervisors should refrain from displaying abusive supervision, in line with a social exchange perspective, we argue that abusive followership causes supervisors to experience low levels of interpersonal justice, stimulating abusive supervision in response. Based on uncertainty management theory, we further expect that the extent to which supervisors reciprocate the experienced injustice with abusive supervisory behavior is moderated by supervisors’ self-doubt. A multi-source field study as well as a vignette study following an experimental-causal-chain approach supported our hypotheses. Specifically, our results revealed that the indirect effect of abusive followership on abusive supervision through supervisors’ interpersonal justice is most pronounced when supervisors experience high levels of self-doubt. The practical and theoretical implications of our findings are discussed.

You Abuse and I Criticize: An Ego Depletion and Leader–Member Exchange Examination of Abusive Supervision and Destructive Voice

We draw from ego depletion and leader–member exchange (i.e., LMX) theories to provide nuanced insight into why abusive supervision is indirectly associated with supervisor-directed destructive voice. A multi-wave, multi-source field study (n = 219) demonstrates evidence that abusive supervision has a positive conditional indirect effect on supervisor-directed destructive voice through subordinates’ relational ego depletion with their supervisors that is stronger for higher LMX differentiation contexts than lower LMX differentiation contexts. We make novel theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions by providing a parsimonious explanation for why relational aspects of supervisory treatment (i.e., abusive supervision and LMX differentiation) drain subordinates’ capacities for controlling their volitional actions during interactions with their supervisors (i.e., relational ego depletion) and how this relationship impacts subordinates’ supervisor-directed destructive voice. Overall, our study extends the application of ego depletion and LMX theories to the examination of abusive supervision and destructive voice in order to meaningfully inform researchers’ attempts to build cohesive streams of research in these areas and practitioners’ attempts to promote ethical workplace environments.

HR Systems and Leadership Attachment Styles as predictors of Employee Creativity and Innovation

This paper focuses on the direct and interactive influence of leadership attachment styles and HR systems on two distinct stages of the individual innovation process – creativity and innovation. We narrow in on three leadership attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant) and two opposite HR systems in organizations (compliance and commitment), and test our hypotheses in two studies. In an experimental study of undergraduate students (n = 163), we establish the direct influence of a compliance HR system on both creativity and innovation and a positive effect of secure attachment on innovation. The interplay between attachment and HR system marginally predicted creativity under commitment HR system and avoidant attachment, and it significantly predicted innovation under commitment HR system and either secure or anxious attachment. A multi-source field study in three EU-based private firms (n = 217) replicated the direct role of commitment HR in stimulating innovation (but not creativity), and pointed towards a more important role of leadership attachment, where secure attachment fostered both creativity and innovation, while anxious attachment hindered both. Moderation analyses supported only a marginal role of the interaction between commitment HR and secure attachment in fostering creativity. Theoretical contributions and implications for future research are discussed.

Trickle-down Effects of Differentiated Leadership on Lower Level Leadership and Team Helping

Drawing from uncertainty management theory and the stress literature, we examine a trickle-down model of differentiated transformational leadership (leaders treating their followers differently) across three hierarchical levels (i.e., managers, supervisors, and a supervisor’s followers). Specifically, we developed a model in which manager differentiated transformational leadership increases unit stress which then translates into increased differentiated supervisor transformational leadership and eventually yields in decreased team helping behavior. We tested this model using data from a large multisource field study. The results provide support for our trickle-down model in that department managers’ differentiated transformational leadership decreased team helping behavior two hierarchical levels below the manager via enhancing department unit stress (Stage 1 mediator) and supervisor differentiated transformational leadership (Stage 2 mediator).

No Regard for Those Who Need It: The Moderating Role of Follower Self-Esteem in the Relationship Between Leader Psychopathy and Leader Self-Serving Behavior.

Recent instances of corporate misconduct and examples of blatant leader self-serving behavior have rekindled interest in leader personality traits as antecedents of negative leader behavior. The current research builds upon that work, and examines the relationship between leader psychopathy and leader self-serving behavior. Moreover, we investigate whether follower self-esteem affects the occurrence of self-serving behavior in leaders with psychopathic tendencies. We predict that self-serving behaviors by psychopathic leaders are more likely to occur in the interaction with followers low in self-esteem. We first conducted an experimental study (N = 156), in which we manipulated follower self-esteem, measured leader psychopathy, and assessed their combined effect on leader self-serving behavior using an ultimatum game. We then conducted a multi-source field study (N = 124 leader–follower dyads) using questionnaires to assess leader psychopathy, follower self-esteem, and perceived leader self-serving behavior. Across both studies, we found that leader psychopathy was positively related to their self-serving behavior, but only when followers had low rather than high self-esteem. As expected, our studies showed that the degree to which (perceived) psychopathic traits of leaders are reflected in their behavior depends on the characteristics of their followers. Apparently, the behavioral expression of negative leader traits is not only a matter of the trait strength, but instead is the result of the interplay between leader and follower in a certain context.

Toot Your Own Horn? Leader Narcissism and the Effectiveness of Employee Self-Promotion

Self-promotion is a form of impression management aiming to present to others a positive image of oneself by emphasizing one’s strengths, contributions, or accomplishments. In the workplace, self-promotion is often targeted at leaders, with employees trying to show a positive image and impress their leader. Self-promotion does not always impress observers though, and we propose that leaders high on narcissism are more likely to be impressed by employee self-promotion than those low on narcissism for two reasons. First, narcissists endorse and engage in self-promotion themselves, and the similarity-attraction principle suggests that people more easily develop affective regard for and show more positive behavior towards those who are more like them, resulting in having a better relationship with them. Second, because narcissists are instrumental and exploitative, they are particularly sensitive to self-promotors’ message that they are an important and influential group member who potentially forms a useful asset to the leader. In turn, we expect high leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived importance to be positively related to leader evaluations of employee performance. We tested this model twice, once using two scenario experiments and once in a multisource field study among 311 leader-follower dyads. Overall, the results suggest that, as expected, the relationship between self-promotion and both perceived LMX and perceived importance of the employee depends on leader narcissism.

Fake It to Make It? Emotional Labor Reduces the Racial Disparity in Service Performance Judgments

Service providers who are Black tend to be evaluated less favorably than those who are White, hindering opportunities for advancement. We propose that the Black-White racial disparity in service performance evaluations is due to occupational-racial stereotype incongruence for interpersonal warmth and that more emotional labor is necessary from Blacks to reduce this incongruence. A pilot study manipulating employee race and occupation confirmed warmth and person-occupation fit judgments are lower for an otherwise equal Black than White service provider. We then demonstrate the racial disparity in service performance is due to interpersonal warmth differences in an experimental study with participants evaluating videos of retail clerks (Study 1) and a multisource field study of grocery clerks with supervisor-rated judgments (Study 2). Furthermore, White service providers are rated highly regardless of emotional labor, but performing more emotional labor (i.e., amplifying positive expressions) is necessary for Black providers to increase warmth judgments and reduce the racial disparity. In other words, Black providers are held to a higher standard where they must “fake it to make it” in service roles. We discuss implications for stereotype fit and expectation states theory, emotional labor, and service management.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place: Contrasting upward and downward effects of leaders’ ingratiation

AbstractResearch indicates that leaders who engage in upward ingratiation, a specific form of impression management, develop positive relationships with their bosses, which in turn enhances leaders’ chances of achieving success at work. However, a more complete understanding of leaders’ ingratiation requires recognition that leaders have multiple audiences and that there may be negative unintended consequences of this behavior to at least one of these audiences. Specifically, upward ingratiation may reduce subordinates’ willingness to contribute to the organization through effective performance because it diminishes relationship quality between leaders and subordinates. To explore this issue, we develop and test a multilevel model that contrasts effects of leaders’ upward ingratiation on leader‐ and subordinate‐level outcomes through the quality of social exchange in the corresponding relationship. We test our predictions by conducting a multiwave, multisource field study with a sample of 91 leaders, 91 bosses, and 215 subordinates in South Korea. Our findings reveal that upward ingratiation is positively associated with indicators of leaders’ intrinsic and extrinsic success because it enhances leader–boss exchange quality (LLX). In contrast, leaders’ upward ingratiation negatively influences subordinates’ job performance because it diminishes leader–subordinate exchange quality (LMX). We also find that subordinates’ perceptions of leaders’ political skill mitigate the negative indirect relationship between upward ingratiation and subordinates’ job performance via LMX quality, and that our hypotheses apply to ingratiation but not to other forms of impression management. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings in relation to ingratiation specifically and to impression management more generally.

Narcissistic Leaders and Their Victims: Followers Low on Self-Esteem and Low on Core Self-Evaluations Suffer Most

Narcissistic leaders are self-absorbed and hold beliefs of entitlement and superiority. Their aggressive tendencies in the face of criticism and inclinations to validate their self-worth by derogating others may lead others to perceive them as being abusive. Here, we test the relationship between leader narcissism and followers’ perceptions of abusive supervision. Drawing upon research related to the behavioral plasticity hypothesis, we propose that followers with low self-esteem will perceive narcissistic leaders as more abusive than those with high self-esteem. Followers low on self-esteem are more insecure, more in need of approval from their supervisor and are more likely to interpret the haughty, derogatory attitude of narcissistic leaders as abusive. Such followers also make for ‘easier targets’ and thus may actually suffer more abusive behavior from their narcissistic leaders. In a first multi-source study of 85 leaders and 128 followers, we found support for the moderating role of follower self-esteem in the relationship between leader narcissism and perceived abusive supervision: Narcissistic leaders were rated as more abusive by followers who were low on self-esteem, but not those higher on self-esteem. In a second multi-source field study among 177 leader-follower dyads, we tested a moderated mediation model and showed that this finding also holds for the broader concept of follower core self-evaluations as a moderator. Abusive supervision, in turn, was related to lower follower performance and followers experiencing more burnout symptoms. Thus, followers low on self-esteem or low on core self-evaluations seem to suffer most from narcissistic leaders as they perceive them to be abusive and, in turn, these followers show reduced performance and more burnout symptoms when working for such leaders. This research thus identifies an important moderator that might help reconcile previous inconsistent findings regarding perceptions of narcissistic leaders.

Respectful leadership: Reducing performance challenges posed by leader role incongruence and gender dissimilarity.

We investigate how respectful leadership can help overcome the challenges for follower performance that female leaders face when working (especially with male) followers. First, based on role congruity theory, we illustrate the biases faced by female leaders. Second, based on research on gender (dis-)similarity, we propose that these biases should be particularly pronounced when working with a male follower. Finally, we propose that respectful leadership is most conducive to performance in female leader–male follower dyads compared with all other gender configurations. A multi-source field study (N = 214) provides partial support for our hypothesis. While our hypothesized effect was confirmed, respectful leadership seems to be generally effective for female leaders irrespective of follower gender, thus lending greater support in this context to the arguments of role congruity rather than gender dissimilarity.

Hot shots and cool reception? An expanded view of social consequences for high performers.

While high performers contribute substantially to their workgroups and organizations, research has indicated that they incur social costs from peers. Drawing from theories of social comparison and conservation of resources, we advance a rational perspective to explain why high performers draw both intentional positive and negative reactions from peers and consider how cooperative work contexts moderate these effects. A multisource field study of 936 relationships among 350 stylists within 105 salons offered support for our model and an experiment with 204 management students constructively replicated our findings and ruled out alternative explanations. Results indicated that peers offered more support and also perpetrated more undermining to high performers. Paradoxical cognitive processes partly explain these behaviors, and cooperative contexts proved socially disadvantageous for high performers. Findings offer a more comprehensive view of the social consequences of high performance and highlight how peer behaviors toward high performers may be calculated and strategic rather than simply reactionary. (PsycINFO Database Record

Translating sales effort into service performance: it's an emotional ride

It has been broadly assumed by both researchers and managers that the more effort salespeople exert, the better their performance outcomes are likely to be. However, organizations are placing an increasing emphasis not just on objective sales outcomes, but on subjective, customer service outcomes as well. This research tests relationships between employee effort and relational performance. We develop and test the position that employee effort reaches a point of diminishing returns, after which relational performance decreases. Further, in an effort to bound our model, we test the moderating role played by employees' emotional intelligence in this relationship. We test our study model in a lagged, multisource field study, matching survey data collected from 107 employees and 19 supervisors, relational performance metrics, and archived effort data collected for a period of 3 months pre–survey data collection. The results from our analysis indicate that the relationship between effort and relational performance is captured by an inverted U-shaped function that is significantly moderated by emotional intelligence. We find that the effort of employees with low EI reaches an identifiable point of diminishing returns; however, the more effort those with high EI exert, the better their relational performance outcomes tend to be.

Leader Humility and Team Performance: Exploring the Mediating Mechanisms of Team PsyCap and Task Allocation Effectiveness

Although there is a growing interest toward the topic of leader humility, extant research has largely failed to consider the underlying mechanisms through which leader humility influences team outcomes. In this research, we integrate the emerging literature of leader humility and social information processing theory to theorize how leader humility facilitates the development of collective team psychological capital, leading to higher team task allocation effectiveness and team performance. While Owens and Hekman (2016) suggest that leader humility has homogeneous effects on followers, we propose a potential heterogeneous effect based on the complementarity literature (e.g., Tiedens, Unzueta, & Young, 2007) and the principle of equifinality (leaders may influence team outcomes through multiple pathways; Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010). In three studies conducted in China, Singapore, and Portugal, including an experiment, a multisource field study, and a three-wave multisource field study, we find support for our hypotheses that leader humility enhances team performance serially through increased team psychological capital and team task allocation effectiveness. We discuss the theoretical implications of our work to the leader humility, psychological capital, and team effectiveness literatures; and offer suggestions for future research.

Servant Leadership, Organisational Citizenship Behavior and Creativity: The Mediating Role of Team-Member Exchange.

Using a multi-source field study design with 184 unique triads of employees-supervisor dyads, this paper examines whether servant leaders install a serving attitude among employees. That is, servant leaders aim to encourage employees to take responsibility, to cooperate and to create high quality interactions with each other (team-member exchange; TMX). We hypothesise that servant leadership will have an influence on Organisational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and creativity through team-member exchange. Two facets of OCB are distinguished: organisational citizenship behaviour towards individuals (OCBI), on the one hand, and taking up extra tasks that benefit the organisation (OCBO), on the other hand. The results show that servant leadership is positively related to team-member exchange, and that team-member exchange is positively related to OCBI, OCBO and creativity. The bootstrapping estimates indicated significant indirect effects of servant leadership on the three target variables through team-member exchange. The study’s findings add to the body of literature on servant leadership, OCB and creativity at the workplace, and underline the importance of creating favourable working conditions that foster positive and high quality team-member exchange. This study also broadens our understanding on the importance of co-workers on the relation between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and creativity.

Does Authentic Leadership Predict Employee Work Engagement and In-Role Performance?

Abstract. This study sought to examine whether and why authentic leadership predicts followers’ in-role performance and did so in a four-wave, multi-level, multi-source field study conducted in the banking sector in Pakistan. Working from the notion that authentic leadership fosters followers’ focus on developing their true self; we suggest authentic leadership predicts followers’ learning goal orientation. Given that learning goal orientation strongly impacts on how people approach and experience their work, in turn, we expected that learning goal orientation determines followers’ work engagement, and their in-role performance. Results indicated learning goal orientation mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and (a) follower performance and (b) work engagement.