Search results

In the present study, the authors draw on social exchange theory to argue that ethical leaders offer positive exchanges in times of change and thereby encourage employees’ change commitment, which subsequently reduces their dysfunctional resistance. Drawing on uncertainty management theory, the authors further hypothesize that employees’ perception of change information (i.e. a change-specific context) not only moderates the negative relationship between employees’ change commitment and dysfunctional resistance but also the indirect relationship between ethical leadership and dysfunctional resistance via change commitment.

The authors conducted a two-source cross-sectional survey involving 144 matched pairs of employees and coworkers from a range of organizations.

Employees’ change commitment mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and their dysfunctional resistance. Furthermore, employees’ perception of change information not only moderates the relationship between change commitment and dysfunctional resistance but, more importantly, also the indirect effect between ethical leadership and dysfunctional resistance via change commitment. More specifically, the effect of change commitment on employees’ dysfunctional resistance as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employees’ dysfunctional resistance through change commitment are stronger when there is little change information.

Ethical leadership is able to reduce employees’ dysfunctional resistance, particularly when employees have limited information regarding the change.

This study demonstrates how change commitment acts as a mediator and change information serves as a moderator in the ethical leadership–dysfunctional resistance relationship in the time of organizational change.

The current study investigates the mediating role of job resources (JRs) (i.e. person-–ob fit, value congruence, alignment, job control, use of skills, participation in decision-making, coworker support and performance feedback) and basic psychological need satisfaction at work (i.e. autonomy, relatedness, competence and meaningfulness) in the relationship between engaging leadership (EL) (i.e. inspiring, strengthening, empowering and connecting) and work engagement.

Structural equation analysis was used to test the mediation hypotheses, using a two-wave longitudinal design and an Indonesian sample of 412 employees from an agribusiness state-owned company.

The results show that EL at baseline 2017 (T1) predicts T1–T2 increase in work engagement (WE) directly, as well as indirectly through T1 JRs, and T1–T2 increase in basic psychological need satisfaction.

This research extends the job demands-resources (JD-R) model by showing the important role of ELfor fostering WE through increasing JRs and satisfying basic psychological needs at work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of ethical leadership by drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The authors hypothesized that a leader’s attitude toward ethical behavior, subjective norm about ethical behavior and perceived behavioral control relate to his/her ethical intention and subsequently to the follower’s perceptions of ethical leadership.

The authors found general support for the model using data collected from a two-wave and two-source field study involving 119 supervisor-subordinate dyads.

The results demonstrated that the leader’s favorable attitude toward ethical behavior and perceived behavioral control predicted his/her ethical intention and subsequently to the follower’s perception of ethical leadership, whereas the subjective norm did not.

The findings of the study provide important insights into developing relevant training and intervention programs in organizations to cultivate ethical leadership. These can be done by encouraging leaders’ ethical intentions through changing their attitudinal and control beliefs regarding ethical behavior. Study findings also provide important insight on developing the recruiting device in a way that would help selecting individuals who may have favorable beliefs toward ethical behavior and thus have the potential to be an ethical leader.

This study first demonstrates the applicability of the TPB in examining the antecedents of ethical leadership.

Even though leaders often are seen as responsible guides, they sometimes behave in a self-serving way, for example, by spending the company's budget on their own, frivolous needs. In this study, the authors explore an aspect of such behavior: the authors examine how an organizational budget policy makes such spending more legitimate in the eyes of followers. Specifically, the authors examine when followers will react to a leader's self-serving behavior as a function of: the role of organizational budget policies, and whether followers are directly affected by the leader's behavior. The authors test two particular budget policies, i.e. carry-forward vs non-carry-forward (a.k.a., “use-it-or-lose-it” budget policies), which differ on whether a department/team's allocations not spent by the end of the fiscal year flow back to the central administration. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Study 1 is a multi-source field study that should enhance the external validity of the results. Study 1 was analyzed with regression analyses and bootstrapping techniques. To be able to draw causal inferences, the authors also conducted an experimental study (Study 2).

Followers react more negatively – by showing increased turnover intentions and decreased commitment and cooperation – to a leader's self-serving behavior in a carry-forward policy than in a use-it-or-lose-it budget policy. Thus, organizational policies, such as the budget policy, affect how followers react to self-serving leaders.

The authors focus on self-serving leader behavior. The authors show that followers’ reactions to self-serving leaders are not necessarily negative and are influenced by the specific organizational context in which the self-serving behavior occurs. More specifically, the authors add to the literature by introducing budget policies as influencing followers’ reactions to leaders’ behavior.

In a replication of a multi-source study by Xu et al., the authors examined whether leader-member exchange (LMX) mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and employee work behaviors, more specifically task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors toward the organization (OCBO), and toward other individuals (OCBI). Moreover, the authors also examined whether LMX mediates this relationship when the authors focus on the two dimensions of abusive supervision, that is active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision.

The authors collected multi-source data in order to minimize common method bias. The authors conducted regression analyses, Sobel tests, and bootstrapping techniques.

The authors found support that LMX mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and OCBO and OCBI. However, the authors could not replicate the mediating role of LMX in the association between abusive supervision and employees' performance. Similar results were obtained when the data were analyzed with the active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision subscales.

Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study, this study does not allow the authors to draw causal conclusions regarding the proposed relationships.

The authors replicated Xu et al.'s findings in a European context with a different sample and different measures for LMX, performance, and OCBI. The authors conducted bootstrapping analyses in order to control for the skewed distribution of abusive supervision. The authors explore whether the proposed relations still stand with regard to active-aggressive and passive-aggressive abusive supervision.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds his/her own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Take any financial or environmental scandal perpetrated by a major company – and unfortunately, there are quite a few to choose from – and people will tend to remember what went wrong and some of the fallout from the scandal, but it is unlikely they will know much about why something went wrong. For example, people will remember that Lehman Brothers went bust during the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008 and can picture its employees leaving its offices with Iron Mountain boxes. They will also perhaps remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, and the devastation it caused the local wildlife. But does anyone remember exactly why these events occurred?

This paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this study is to discover the learning mechanisms and temporal dynamics of implementing systems (Six Sigma) as it unfolds over time.

The data come from a European engineering company that was implementing a Six Sigma-based quality management system (QMS) over a seven-year period. The analysis is based on an event-sequence reconstruction of the implementation process as it unfolded over time and discovers four different learning mechanisms that emerged: programmatic, persistent, adaptive and dialectical learning mechanisms. The research follows a process design study, where the authors study how the process unfolds over time.

Much of the literature on implementing management systems suggests that implementation follows a prescribed sequence of “turn-key” steps. However, the findings show that only 40% of all events were driven by prescribed “turn-key” generic practices, while 56% of events required constructing new practices via adaptive and dialectical learning. Moreover, the implementation process did not proceed in a linear programmatic fashion, but instead followed a punctuated equilibrium pattern, which alternated between periods of incremental change and major organizational change. The study also found that implementation required changing many complementary organizational structures and practices that were interdependent with the management system (i.e. Six Sigma). By understanding the implementation process, managers can better assess the time and effort involved, better adapt the system to their situated context and predict critical junctures where implementation could break down.

This research complements the few studies that have examined the process of implementing management systems. Most studies examine factors or conditions that result in implementation success (the what of implementing systems), but few examine the process of implementation and the learning that takes place during implementation (the how of implementing systems), which is a complex nonlinear process that involves different modes of learning.