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There has been much debate about people’s perceptions of entitlement. We trace the history of the different uses of entitlement perceptions across fields in order to develop a typology that identifies two dimensions: level of entitlement and degree of reciprocity. We conclude that a historical, cross‐disciplinary examination of the construct of employee entitlement will improve our understanding of the role of entitlement perceptions in the workplace. Specifically, we suggest that each of the four combinations of the entitlement and reciprocity dimensions points to a different employee‐organization relationship and, thus, requires a different motivational tool.

Integrating the reciprocity and equity lenses, this study explores the curvilinear relationship between leader humility and employee organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) by introducing psychological entitlement and perspective taking, and constructing a moderated mediation curvilinear model aiming to provide a more comprehensive understanding of why and how leader humility affects OCBs.

Using multisource, three-wave data collected from 261 employees and 55 supervisors in China, we adopted multi-level modeling analysis to test the moderated mediation curvilinear model that links leader humility to OCBs.

We found a curvilinear relationship between leader humility and psychological entitlement, and psychological entitlement mediated the curvilinear indirect relationship between leader humility and OCBs. Furthermore, employees' perspective taking buffered this curvilinear indirect effect.

Following social exchange theory and prior research discussing the potential benefits and drawbacks of leader humility, this study developed and tested a moderated mediation curvilinear model of the relationship between leader humility and OCBs. Our study thus provides a more balanced and dialectical perspective on understanding the effects of leader humility and enriching the leadership process model. This study also offers actionable strategies for leaders and organizations to optimize the benefits of humble leadership.

This chapter identifies the broad interdisciplinary ideologies of entitlement in order to situate and understand the potential theoretical informants of excessiveness in teacher entitlement. Although the authors' perspectives and experiences on the theme of entitlement are located in the US educational system, this is accompanied by an awareness of the need to examine the topic internationally since the topic needs to “be reconsidered in terms of contextual variables.”

Psychological and organizational entitlement were the prevalent strains of entitlement that emerged in the reviewed literature and “academic entitlement” specific to the field of education. Therefore, three strands, psychological, organizational and academic, form the thematic categories for this scoping literature review.

Most literature on “academic entitlement” deals with excessive entitlement amongst students. No reference to excessive teacher entitlement was found. However, specific gaps were found in: (1) what qualifies as excessive teacher entitlement, (2) research scholarship on teacher entitlement, and (3) entitlement studies specifically aimed at global reach and applicable to teachers.

The theoretical informants of teacher entitlement identified in this study indicate that the phenomenon goes beyond individual mindset to encompass the mediation of sociocultural and political factors in its construction, thus rendering a simple theory of excessiveness in association with teacher entitlement improbable at this time.

Our investigation of the emerging issue of teacher entitlement is viewed from the perspective of researchers trying to make sense of the concept with the intention of exploring its links to inclusive educational practice, teacher education and research. This chapter is therefore mainly conceptual, focusing on the limits and possibilities offered by the extension of the concept of entitlement, first relating to students, now extended to the teaching profession. The concept of entitlement is gaining currency principally in the Anglo-Saxon literature but should also be reconsidered in relation to contextual influences. In the educational field, debates denote several ‘displacements of concepts’, as shown in the extensive reviews and analyses of the concept of entitlement attitudes we undertake in this work. We first discuss developments and interpretations of the concept of entitlement specific to different disciplines in the literature. Then we undertake a contextual reframing based on a redefinition of the concept drawing on input from empirical research data, which emphasizes the challenges encountered when dealing with the phenomena of social cohesion, ethics and cultural diversity in education. The findings highlight the potential benefits of integrating the concept of teacher entitlement into valid strategies for implementing an inclusive and ethical educational process.

While “academic entitlement” focuses on student entitlement and its consequences, there is a need to be aware of the consequences of teachers' entitled feelings arising from their subjective perceptions on student learning. This micro-ethnographically oriented study uses the case of an eleven-year-old fifth-grade student's low academic performance at a Spanish primary school to unravel the notion of excessive teacher entitlement embodied in the social organization of schooling. A qualitative analysis of teachers' perceptions of this student's low performance showed that most of their opinions were subjective, based on their deep-rooted deficit view of students. These beliefs seemed to make teachers feel entitled to blame the student and her background instead of arousing self-reflection leading to self-realization and change in practice. The study points to teacher entitled feelings as a symptom of the wider sociocultural mores that make teachers assume the power to arbitrate without considering students' situated needs. This study draws attention to the need to help teachers become conscious of and analyze self-entitlement to enable them to base their decisions on reason rather than prejudice.

This chapter presents an investigation of the relationship between psychological entitlement and stress. Empirical and conceptual evidence is considered suggesting that Conservation of Resources (COR) theory may apply differently to employees with a heightened sense of entitlement. Using attribution and COR theory, a conceptual framework is offered predicting that entitlement is positively associated with subjective stress, based on the logic that psychologically entitled employees develop unjustifiably inflated levels of self-evaluative internal coping resources such as self-esteem and self-efficacy that promote unmet expectations. It is also proposed that political skill and the ability to manage perceptions of competency may attenuate this relationship. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges associated with managing psychologically entitled employees.

Entitlement is a remote research topic in South Africa. Even further remote is the idea of teacher educator entitlement being a topic of academic inquiry. In this chapter, we report a self-study of a teacher educator's experiences and interactions with her students, in which the construct of entitlement was used as an interpretative lens. The data consist of narratives constructed from journal entries based on teacher educators' experiences collected over 12 years. Findings from this case study point to the prevalence of teacher educator entitlement, which manifests itself in different forms. Investigations need to be broadened to establish its reach and the underlying causes of entitled attitudes and behaviours among teacher educators, and how such behaviours impact professional practice and professional growth.

Purpose: The psychological contract involves expectations and responsibilities from both employees and organizations. Recently, arguments have emerged that link employee expectations to increasing individual entitlement beliefs which may not involve reciprocity. Equity theory suggests that employees continually assess their personal outcomes for fairness and that these equity perceptions could be affected by entitlement beliefs. The question that then arises is, how do entitled employees pursue these unmet beliefs and what are the implications if these beliefs are met or unmet? Approach: In this chapter, we present a conceptual model proposing that emotion regulation motives (instrumental or hedonic) influence how employees with unmet entitlement beliefs seek to advance their claims. Using equity theory as an underpinning theory, we conceptualize that instrumental and hedonic emotion regulation motives lead to different job satisfaction levels. We also argue that actual job performance moderates this relationship. Originality/Value: Understanding this process is essential as managers may constantly deal with employee entitlement beliefs, and low job satisfaction has been linked to poor employee and organizational outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study examines influence and motivational tactics for effectively managing entitled employees, a potential connection between generations and levels of entitlement, managerial challenges, and sources and characteristics of entitled employees. The study uses qualitative methods and data from hospitality leaders. Increased legislature and use of technology, the structure of the educational system, and changes in social norms are promoting entitlement in the workplace. Generation Y hospitality employees hold a higher sense of entitlement than past generations and possess that sense of entitlement even before entering the workforce. The most favorable reactions of entitled employees were attributed to the use of exchange and coalition tactics where entitled employees find pride in their employment and management promotes teamwork and accountability.

Using a grounded theory approach, this study aims to develop a framework of teacher entitlement in Iran. The preliminary findings point to chronic socio-economic frustration as the main theme present in the entitlement discourse among Iranian teachers. Teachers were highly dissatisfied and felt that they deserved better social and economic advantages. The chapter unearths the dynamics of power relations in the wider educational context, and several factors in the immediate practical context of teaching (i.e., poor quality of teaching environments, crisis in teachers' professional identity, the complexities of teaching), that produced entitlement perceptions which, in turn, led to unacceptable behavior on the part of some teachers. The study also considers the negative impact of entitled teachers in schools on teacher–learner relationships and offers a conceptual framework for understanding teacher entitlement in the context of Iran.