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The purpose of this paper is to validate, distinguish, and integrate the multiple mechanisms linking leader-member exchange (LMX) to employee work effort. Taking a multi-foci perspective, the authors propose that organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), supervisory support, and organizational identification each explain unique variance in the LMX-work effort relationship.

The data were collected using a two-wave survey among 184 employees from a wide variety of professions, industries, and organizations. Multiple mediation tests and path analysis were conducted to examine the hypotheses.

The results suggested that when entered simultaneously, OBSE, supervisory support, and organizational identification each explained unique variance in the relationship between LMX at Time 1 and work effort at Time 2.

The research shows that leaders stimulate employee work effort via multiple foci. The mediating mechanisms of these foci are distinct and unique. It implies that researchers need to take the multiple foci of leadership into account when studying LMX.

Previous studies generally treat LMX as a dyadic construct; the study is among the first to reveal the multiple foci in LMX. By simultaneously examining mechanisms of the individual-, dyad-, and collective-foci, the research substantiates the unique effect of the three mechanisms, and integrates theories in LMX research. Moreover, the research in the Chinese context further validates the effectiveness of LMX in non-western culture, and provides contextual implications.

Adopting an affective events perspective, our study investigates the relationship between perceived organizational politics (POP) and employee voice by exploring the mediating role of affect and the moderating role of supervisor political support.

The hypothesized model was tested with three-wave data collected from 393 full-time employees.

Results indicate that POP indirectly impacts employee voice through influencing positive and negative affect, and that supervisor political support moderates these indirect effects by moderating the relationship between POP and affective states.

Survey data can hardly test the causal relationship. Effect of employees' POP could be further examined in the lens subjective positive experiences. Organizational politics might have positive meanings.

Our findings show that POP brings employees negative feelings and reduces their voice behaviors while supervisor political support can mitigate this inhibiting effect. Therefore, managers should learn how to use political behavior more reasonably in highly political work environment.

By highlighting the possibility that employees can be beneficiaries having a vested interest in political environment and investigating the unexplored affective explanatory mechanisms underlying the POP–voice relationship, this study provides new directions for future research on POP and employee voice.

To cope with the workforce shortages brought by population ageing, it is critical to understand the workplace micro-foundations that determine the mechanisms of older workers' early retirement intentions. Drawing on the conservation of resource theory, this study examines the spillover effect of strain-based family-to-work conflict (SFWC) on early retirement intentions, with emotional exhaustion as a mediator. Additionally, it investigates the contextual resources, HR practice flexibility, as a boundary condition for the above relationships.

The study tests the hypotheses by employing a multi-sourced matching sample of 231 workers (aged 45–65) and their 49 managers.

The results of cross-level analysis revealed that SFWC has a positive indirect relationship with early retirement intentions, through increased emotional exhaustion. The relationship between emotional exhaustion and early retirement intentions is weaker when older employees experience higher HR practice flexibility.

This study is the first to use a resources perspective to analyse early retirement mechanisms, and it examines the spillover effect of SFWC on early retirement intentions. The findings also contribute to the literature on the role of HR practice for ageing workers.

This article verified the construct of servant leadership and validated a measure developed in Western culture. Results from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N=285) produced a five-factor model – altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and community stewardship with less items than the original measure. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N=304) indicated that the 5-factor servant leadership model fits the data best. Correlation analysis of the supervisor-subordinate paired sample (N=209 dyads) showed that servant leadership has more common features with transformational leadership and less with paternalistic leadership; the predictive power of servant leadership was roughly equivalent to that of transformational leadership but higher than that of paternalistic leadership when predicting criterion variables such as overall satisfaction and deviance behavior. Our results totally demonstrated that the revised servant leadership scale in Chinese culture has higher reliability and validity, which could be used for subsequent studies as an effective instrument.

The first section of this volume deals with leadership qualities in the global environment. In particular, we are pleased to have scholars share their leading-edge research in terms of the following leadership characteristics and qualities: personality, competency, the ability to scan environment in search of useful information, the ability to anticipate and manage errors, and integrity and ethical leadership.

Soon Ang (Ph.D. Minnesota) is Goh Tjoei Kok Distinguished Chair of Management and Head, Division of Strategy, Management & Organization at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests are in cultural intelligence, global leadership, and outsourcing. She has published extensively in Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Management Science, MIS Quarterly, and Social Forces, and serves on editorial boards including Management Science, Organization Science, Applied Psychology, Decision Science, Information System Research, MIS Quarterly, etc. She has pioneered and coauthored two books on cultural intelligence (Stanford University Press) and coedited the Handbook of Cultural Intelligence (ME Sharpe). She was recently awarded the prestigious Distinguished International Alumni Award by the University of Minnesota for her academic leadership and scholarship record.