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This study aims to investigate the situational factors that intensify the impact of leader bottom-line mentality (BLM) on employee pro-self-unethical behavior. In particular, the moderating role of contingent rewards and punishments is evaluated under the lens of situational strength theory.

Data were collected from 218 full-time employees working in the USA in a time-lagged study and analyzed using SPSS Process Macro.

Statistical analysis reveal contingent rewards and punishments significantly moderate the positive relationship between BLM and pro-self-unethical behavior.

This paper highlights the need for more balanced reward systems that incorporate moral conduct into work performance. It also emphasizes the role of robust accountability and monitoring systems in minimizing employees’ unethical behavior.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of contingent rewards and punishments on the relationship between leader BLM and subordinate pro-self-unethical behavior. Moreover, it provides significant empirical support to situational strength theory.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine a customer orientation mechanism through which abusive supervision influences retail salespeople’s job performance; and second, to investigate how abusive supervision’s effects may be moderated by the same leader’s use of contingent punishment and contingent reward.

Two studies provide consistent findings. Study 1 used the field survey data from 129 salespeople in 42 retail stores. The proposed moderated mediation model was estimated using the random coefficient modeling technique. Findings were replicated in Study 2, in which data were collected from a sample of 679 US retail salespeople recruited through M-Turk.

Results from both studies show that abusive supervision reduces salespeople’s job performance through lowering their customer orientation. Furthermore, the use of contingent punishment from the same supervisor buffers abusive supervision’s detrimental effect, whereas the use of contingent reward augments it.

The issues the authors address in this research have significant implications for the literature of abusive supervision and retail selling. First, the authors contribute to the abusive supervision literature by pointing it out that the negative effect of abusive supervision can spill over to organizations’ external stakeholders, namely, customers. Previous research on abusive supervision has mainly focused on how abused subordinates exhibit hostile acts directed against the supervisor, coworkers and the organization (Tepper et al., 2017), with little attention paid to abusive supervision’s impact on organizations’ external stakeholders such as customers. This research fills the void by placing impaired customer-orientation as a critical consequence of abusive supervision. Second, this research tests a contingent self-regulation impairment model of abusive supervision and advances our understanding about how the same supervisor’s functional leadership behaviors (contingent reward/punishment) may set contingencies for the effect of abusive supervision on employee outcomes. This investigation clears the doubts about whether the use of functional leadership behaviors along with abusive supervision buffers or aggravates the detrimental effect of the latter. Finally, this study’s findings shed new insights to marketing practitioners, especially in understanding how salespeople may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. This research shows that abusive supervision can lower employees’ customer orientation, which will hurt the company in the long run.

The findings intend to provide important guidelines for companies to develop effective workshops and training programs to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the retailing industry. For example, the findings shed new insights in understanding how employees may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. Another important managerial implication of this research is that the use of contingent reward after mistreating subordinates can backfire. Supervisor abuses, followed by a contingent reward, send an inconsistent signal to the employee that creates confusion and strain. Inconsistent actions from the supervisor also produce ethical tensions that reduce customer-oriented behaviors and a company’s ability to serve the customer (Friend et al., 2020). These training programs are important methods to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the workforce.

This research draws on the contingent self-regulation impairment model as an overarching framework to unpack the relationship between abusive supervision and salespeople’s job performance. Integrating three research streams (i.e. abusive supervision, leadership reinforcement and retail selling), this study proposes customer orientation as a novel mechanism and sheds light on how abusive supervision interplays with contingent punishment/reward to impact salespeople’s outcomes.

This paper aims to examine the validity of contingent reward and its relationship to extra effort and to further advance understanding of the leader/follower performance reward relationship.

The concept of contingent reward has largely remained unchanged since 1985. Consequently, the items of contingent reward were examined in terms of their content validity that was guided by transactional leadership theory, re‐formulated path‐goal theory of leadership, and negotiation theory. Three new contingent reward factors were identified (i.e. framing, clarifying, and rewarding). These were examined using one‐factor congeneric measurement models. Valid factors were identified using a high‐order confirmatory factor analysis to further confirm the structural validity of the three new factors of contingent reward. Finally, structural equation models were calculated to examine the relationships among contingent reward factors and extra effort.

Three distinct factors of contingent reward were identified and their relationships with extra effort was consistent with the integrative negotiation strategies where each factor formed part of a negotiation process. Contingent reward (framing) initiates the negotiation process and directly loads on contingent reward (rewarding and clarifying); contingent reward (framing) did not directly load on to extra effort. Contingent reward (rewarding) supports the negotiation process by loading directly on contingent reward (clarifying). The negotiation process is completed with contingent reward (clarifying) directly loading on extra effort. These three contingent reward factors form a simple negotiation process that highlights several important aspect of the leader/follower reward performance relationship.

This study uses a cross‐sectional design that means that its findings may not be generalisable to other populations. However, the findings of this study should encourage researchers to appreciate that common leadership behaviour, like contingent reward, may have more complex interrelationships with outcome factors such as extra effort than previously expected.

Leaders should view their use of contingent reward behaviours in terms of a process rather than simply exhibiting a single clarifying contingent reward type behaviour. In other words, leaders need to establish the boundaries (i.e. framing), acknowledge involvement (i.e. rewarding), and then elucidate mutual outcomes (i.e. clarifying). This process should enable leaders to negotiate greater flexibilities and create more momentum within their leader/follower performance reward relationships.

This paper challenges the foundation ideas and empirical pedigree of contingent reward and incorporates advances in theories such as the reformulated path‐goal theory and interpret the behaviours in a broader multi‐disciplinary context, i.e. integrative negotiation strategies.

While the use of computerized decision aids in accounting is widespread, little is known about the effects of decision aids on accounting decision making. However, prior research has often noted the difficulty in getting users to accept and rely upon decision aids (Rose, 2002). A primary area of focus in the design of decision aids that will facilitate user acceptance and reliance has been the development of user-centered interfaces that increase the user's comfort with the aid. This study contributes to this body of research by extending the findings of Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983) on the use of informational versus controlling rewards to the context of a decision aid and the interface design. While Ryan et al. focused on the effects of verbal feedback on intrinsic motivation, this study focuses on the impact of text-based feedback from a decision aid on decision performance for a choice task. Additionally, this study examines the effect of task-contingent versus performance-contingent rewards on the impact of the decision aid feedback. The results indicate a differential effect from that of Ryan et al. (1983) when feedback is provided through a decision aid and the focus is on decision performance rather than the precursor condition of intrinsic motivation. Additional research is needed to help explain why the findings obtained by Ryan et al. do not hold in the context of computerized decision aid use when decision performance is measured directly. There are important implications of these findings both in terms of theory development and decision aid design in professional decision-making environments such as accounting.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating effect of contingent reward on the relationship between democratic leadership and organizational performance.

Explanatory and cross-sectional survey designs were used. A quantitative research approach was also adopted to collect the data from 476 employees in the telecommunication industry. Using statistics package for social science, the data was analyzed via descriptive statistics, correlation and hierarchical regression techniques.

The results reveal that both democratic leadership and contingent reward have a significant positive relationship with organizational performance. Furthermore, contingent reward significantly augments and moderates the relationship between democratic leadership and organizational performance. Thus, the combination of democratic leadership and contingent reward would more likely produce higher organizational performance.

This study has made a significant contribution to leadership and organizational literature by establishing the effectiveness of contingent reward as a moderator on the relationship between democratic leadership and organizational performance in a telecommunication industry.

This study supposes to provide new insights into the role of leader behaviors in motivating employees by examining how and when spiritual leadership and contingent reward leadership facilitate employee vigor at work.

Drawing from self-determination theory (SDT), the current study proposes that spiritual leadership intrinsically motivates employees, whereas contingent reward leadership extrinsically motivates employees – both of which subsequently improve employee vigor at work. The theoretical model was tested through a sample of 191 employees collected across three time points in China.

Results revealed that spiritual leadership positively facilitates employee vigor at work through enhancing their work enjoyment, and employees' need for achievement can amplify the effects of spiritual leadership. In addition, employees' performance-reward expectancy transmits the effects of contingent reward leadership on employee vigor at work, and leaders' performance expectations play a key role in strengthening the positive influences of contingent reward leadership.

Based on SDT, this study provides a comprehensive explanation of how and when two patterns of leader behaviors affect employee vigor at work. Therefore, the authors provide significant insights for leadership and work design in human resource management.

This study focuses on the relationship between contingent reward behavior and subordinate employees’ performance in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.

The instruments used in this study were the leader–member exchange questionnaire and the contingent reward behavior questionnaire, which was completed by salespeople.

The results of the study (which assessed 37 respondents) indicate a meaningful relationship between contingent reward behavior and leader–member exchange. Based on these results, researchers focused on one division in the sales department that has a low leader–member exchange by providing intervention in the form of leadership coaching. The sigficant results between pre- and post-test differences, using Wilcoxon signed-rank test, indicate that the coaching intervention improved contingent reward behavior and increased leader–member exchange.

The main limitation of this study was that it involved only 44 salespeople from one company. Therefore, the results may not be generalizable.

Coaching could be an effective approach to improve leaders’ contingent reward behavior.

This study provides more evidence that coaching can help leaders improving their behavior, particularly in relation to leader–member exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to examine employee perceptions of fairness and work morale as mediators of the relationship between leader reward behavior and employee behavior.

A matrix of meta‐analytic estimates containing the focal variables (leader reward behavior, fairness, morale, and employee behavior) was constructed following a literature review of published studies. This matrix was then analyzed using structural equation modeling to test a series of nested models.

Leader reward behavior is positively related to higher task performance and organizational citizenship behavior, and fewer intentions to turnover. These relationships are mediated by employees’ perceptions of fairness and work morale.

The paper extends the leadership literature by identifying two mechanisms (viz., fairness and morale) through which leader reward behavior relates to employee behavior. Possible limitations are the drawbacks associated with meta‐analysis (e.g. inability to make causal inferences).

Rewarding subordinate performance alone is not sufficient to increase task performance and organizational citizenship behavior and decrease turnover intentions. Instead, managers must ensure that their contingent reward behaviors are seen as fair by employees in order to have favorable effects.

To date, research on possible mediators of the effects of leader reward behavior has been scarce.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the applicability of transformational leadership and substitutes-for-leadership theories in Malaysia’s and Pakistan’s work settings.

This study employed a survey-based approach using professional employees in both countries as respondents. In total, 215 responses to a web-based survey in Malaysia and 523 responses to a survey administered using personal methods in Pakistan were used for the analysis.

The results revealed that Malaysia’s leaders were rated high on the dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership. The transformational leadership dimensions produced desirable effects on subordinates’ outcomes in both samples, but the contingent punishment dimension of transactional leadership produced especially undesirable effects on subordinates’ outcomes. Substitutes for leadership also independently affected subordinates’ outcomes and produced similar effects on subordinates’ outcomes in both samples. In general, the effects in the Malaysian sample are larger than those in the Pakistani sample.

The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society’s high level of collectivism and moderately high-power distance orientation.

The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society’s low power distance orientation.

Since this study is the first to compare the applicability of western theories in collectivist cultures that differ significantly in their power distance orientation, it contributes meaningfully to the cross-culture leadership field.

Subjects provided creative responses to memoranda from an in‐basket exercise. In a 262 design, contingent/noncontingent extrinsic reward conditions were crossed with intrinsic motivation/no intrinsic motivation conditions. Results indicated that intrinsic motivation was associated with improved creativity, while offering contingent, extrinsic rewards were not. Thus, the hypothesized inoculation effect associated with intrinsic motivation was not supported. Results are discussed in terms of specific work history and creativity outcomes, with particular attention focused on defining creativity in the business context (i.e. applied creativity) rather than in more artistic settings (i.e. pure creativity).