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This paper aims to investigate why followers have low perceptions of leader openness and thus feel reluctant to communicate novel ideas by examining leader–follower relationship conflict (i.e. interpersonal incompatibility) and a follower’s power distance orientation (i.e. an acceptance of uneven power distribution in organizations) as antecedents.

The research administrators conducted a three-wave work behavior survey in Study 1, a laboratory experiment in Study 2, and an online experiment in Study 3.

The results demonstrated that leader–follower relationship conflict reduced followers’ perceptions of leader openness. However, the negative impact of relationship conflict became non-significant when followers have high power distance orientations (i.e. an acceptance of uneven power distribution in organizations). The findings also showed an indirect interaction effect of leader–follower relationship conflict and followers’ power distance orientation on the followers’ communication of novel ideas through the followers’ perceptions of leader openness.

The research suggests that followers with higher power distance orientations are more likely to communicate novel ideas consistently because their relationship conflicts with their leaders do not negatively influence their perceptions of leader openness. Although researchers traditionally view cultures with a high level of power distance value as an obstacle to employee creativity, the present study reveals the benefits of an individual-level power distance orientation.

This research study investigated the relationship between participative decision-making and innovative work behavior by considering the moderating role of power distance orientation of individuals. Grounded in the approach-inhibition theory of power, the authors proposed that participative decision-making could mitigate perceived power gap and motivate individuals with high power distance orientation to engage more in innovative work behavior.

Survey data were collected from 243 faculty members from 2 universities located at Dhaka, Bangladesh. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis.

The results from the model estimation showed that the positive relationship between participative decision-making and innovative work behavior was stronger among faculty members with high power distance orientation than those with low power distance orientation. The simple slope analysis also clarified the fact that faculty members with high power distance orientation could increase their innovative work behavior to be at the same level as that of faculty members with low power distance orientation when the members were involved highly in participative decision-making.

Participative decision-making is a management practice that should be implemented in order to motivate faculty members to actively engage in innovative work behavior. Particularly for faculty members who are sensitive towards the power status of other members in the workplace, this management practice is highly recommended to lessen the perceived social barrier that discourages these faculty members from engaging in innovative work behavior.

The authors' research advanced knowledge from prior studies by offering new theoretical insight into the role of empowerment practice that could motivate individuals with high power distance orientation to engage more in innovative practices.

This paper aims to reveal the effects of an organisation’s bargaining power on its negotiating behaviours (including integrating, obliging, compromising, dominating and avoiding) in the context of inter-organisational conflict in construction projects and investigate how organisational power distance orientation moderates the relationship between the organisation’s bargaining power and its negotiating behaviours.

The authors conducted a questionnaire survey among practitioners in the Chinese construction industry with the final sample consisting of 219 responses. A structural equation model was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that an organisation’s bargaining power is positively associated with dominating and integrating behaviours but negatively associated with obliging and avoiding behaviours. Additionally, bargaining power is found to be negatively associated with compromising behaviour when the organisation has a high power distance orientation. Finally, a higher degree of power distance orientation strengthens the positive effect bargaining power has on dominating behaviour.

The findings can help practitioners to predict the negotiating behaviours of a counterpart according to its bargaining power and the power distance in its organisational culture. This can then enable practitioners to adjust their strategies accordingly and steer the negotiations towards a win–win outcome.

This study applies the approach-inhibition theory of power to inter-organisational negotiations and empirically tests the relationship between an organisation’s bargaining power and its negotiating behaviours in the context of construction projects. Additionally, this study reveals that organisational power distance orientation moderates this relationship.

The point of divergence for the authors’ analysis is the observation that research on the development of professional skills did not provide empirical support to a possible positive relationship between innovative culture and development of professional skills. The author believes that the injection of intervening variables has the potential to do just that. The purpose of this paper is to understand such contingencies through a developed moderated mediation model, which jointly examines supportive leadership as the mediating mechanism and individual power distance orientation as a moderator and to increase the theoretical validity and precision of investigating the development of professional skills.

The survey data were collected from 317 information technology (IT) professional technical engineers and their supervisors from high-tech sectors. The authors tested the hypotheses by hierarchical regression and followed Baron and Kenny (1986) instruction to examine our moderated mediation model. The authors used a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to verify the constructs’ distinctiveness before testing the hypotheses was performed. Meanwhile, in order to test the mediating effect, the three-equation approach to testing mediation, as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986), was used.

The strong support for schema theory in this study suggests that the development of professional skills can be notably promoted through a moderated mediation model which integrates the link between innovative culture and professional skills through the mediating effect of supportive leadership and the direct effects are mitigated by the moderating effect of individual power distance orientation. It highlights the importance of appropriately matching innovative culture and supportive leadership with the power distance orientation of employees. This universalistic organizational behavior approach has worked effectively in an Asian sample.

This study provides a better understanding of work motivation by showing that an employee uses schemas to interpret the relationships among perceived innovative culture, individual power distance orientation, supportive leadership and development of professional skills. This paper also illustrates how perceived innovative culture can act as an positive motivator to inspire IT technical engineers’ development of professional skills, and how individually held power distance orientation may positively or negatively influence the relationship between perceived innovative culture and supportive leadership. Hence, this study has extended the schema theory in organizations and informed the literature on supportive leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effects of power distance and collectivistic orientations on the effectiveness of intrinsic, extrinsic and reciprocal motivators in promoting employees’ willingness to cooperate for organizational interest. An integrated theoretical framework which incorporated cultural influence on need priority and on legitimacy of social exchange was established to develop the hypotheses.

This study used the methodology of information-integration theory to test the research hypotheses.

This study found that power distance orientation enhanced the effectiveness of extrinsic motivator but mitigated that of intrinsic motivator, and was irrelevant to that of reciprocal motivator. In contrast, collectivistic orientation mitigated the effectiveness of extrinsic motivator but enhanced that of reciprocal motivator, and was irrelevant to that of intrinsic motivator.

Managers may use reciprocal motivators for employees with high collectivism in order to increase their willingness to cooperate for the interest of the organization. Meanwhile, extrinsic motivators may be utilized for employees with high power distance but may not be as effective for those with low power distance. However, managers should not expect intrinsic motivators to be as attractive to those with high power distance as to those with low power distance.

By integrating multiple cultural orientations and multiple work motivators in one study, this research clarified the differential moderating effects of power distance and collectivistic orientations on the effectiveness of intrinsic, extrinsic and reciprocal motivators in promoting employees’ willingness to cooperate. Potential confounding problems in prior studies derived from the correlation between cultural values and coexistence of multiple motivators were discussed.

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between spiritual leadership and employee innovative behavior by testing the mediating role of autonomous motivation and the moderating role of employee power distance orientation.

The author predicted an indirect relationship between spiritual leadership and employee innovative behavior via autonomous motivation. Also, the author predicted the positive effect of spiritual leadership on employee innovative behavior will be stronger when employee power distance orientation is high. Hypotheses are tested with data gathered from 174 participants.

Results showed that spiritual leadership was positively related to employee innovative behavior via autonomous motivation. And, the positive relationship between spiritual leadership and autonomous motivation was stronger when employee power distance orientation was high. Furthermore, the indirect effect of autonomous motivation was stronger when employee power distance orientation was high.

This study provides a new theoretical perspective – self-determination theory – to test how and when spiritual leadership enhances employee innovative behavior by suggesting autonomous motivation as a mediator and employee power distance orientation as a boundary condition.

The results of this research provide suggestions for leaders to adopt spiritual leadership as well as enhance interactions between them and employees to increase employee innovative behavior.

This study highlights the moderating role of employee power distance orientation and uses self-determination theory to examine how and when spiritual leadership plays a positive role.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation of subordinate proactive personality with subjective evaluations of career success by direct supervisors, as well as conceptualize the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) as a mediator and power distance orientation as a moderator for understanding this relation.

Data were collected using a two-wave survey research design. Participants were drawn from 360 supervisor-subordinate dyads from mainland China. Hierarchical regression analyses, Edwards and Lambert’s (2007) moderated path analysis approach, and Preacher et al.’s (2010) Monte Carlo simulation procedure were used to test the hypothesized relationships.

LMX mediated the positive relationship between proactive personality and career success. Both the relationship between LMX and career success and the indirect relationship between proactive personality and career success were stronger when power distance orientation was lower.

This study contributes to the authors’ understanding of how and when proactive personality facilitates employee career success in the era of the boundaryless career. However, all data were collected within a single organization, which limits the observed variability and decreases external validity.

Training employees to facilitate initiative in the workplace may build and maintain better and stronger relationships with their supervisors. To enhance person-organization fit, organizations should recruit and hire employees with lower levels of power distance orientation.

This study provides solid evidence that the extent to which LMX mediates the relationship between proactive personality and career success depends on power distance orientation. It represents a promising new direction for the proactive personality and career success literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work engagement as well as the moderating effect of power distance orientation.

With a multi-wave survey, this paper uses a sample of 251 employees from the banking sector in Pakistan to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work engagement. Besides, power distance orientation mitigates the positive relationship between ethical leadership and psychological empowerment as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employee work engagement via psychological empowerment.

This study contributes to the existing ethical leadership literature by identifying psychological empowerment as an additional mediator and power distance orientation as a boundary condition, in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work engagement.

Based on the cognitive appraisal theory, the current research extended the content domain of sexual harassment research by examining the moderating effect of power distance orientation, a cultural value on the relationship between sexual harassment and organizational behavior.

For this, this study used a survey method and multiple regression analyses with 285 Korean employees.

As a result, first, the more unwanted sexual attention employees perceived from their leaders, the less likely they were to be affectively committed to their organization. Second, the more sexual coercion employees perceived from their leaders, the more likely they were to have turnover intention. Third, the negative relationship between unwanted sexual attention and affective commitment is stronger for the employees who are low rather than high in power distance orientation. Finally, the positive relationship between sexual coercion and turnover intention is stronger for the employees who are low rather than high in power distance orientation.

The study expanded the content area of sexual harassment research by showing the control effect of the power distance direction.

This purpose of this paper is to examine cultural orientations and intention of Ghanaian women to engage in entrepreneurship while assessing the role of perceived support system. The aim is to contribute to the literature in the sub-Saharan African context where women entrepreneurs are generally under-researched, despite their increasing significant roles in socio-economic development in the continent even in the face of huge cultural barriers.

The study uses a hierarchical regression analysis and Hay’s PROCESS moderation technique to analyze survey data from 190 female students from Ghana, Africa.

The results indicate that uncertainty avoidance and power distance cultural orientations have significant positive and negative effects, respectively, on women’s participation in formal entrepreneurship. However, collectivism and masculine cultural orientations do not have any effect on their intention to engage in formal entrepreneurial activity. The study further shows that perceived support system has a buffering effect on the destructive consequences of power distance culture on formal entrepreneurship intentions. On the contrary, perceived support does not moderate the relationship between uncertainty avoidance, collectivism and masculine cultural and formal entrepreneurial intention.

Given the fact that most African governments are making efforts to accelerate the growth and development of their economies via entrepreneurship and economic empowerment, this study’s findings encourage stakeholders to implement measures to leverage on the positive dimensions of cultures to facilitate the development of formal entrepreneurship among Ghanaian women while mitigating the negative consequences of cultural practices. The findings further highlight the need to evaluate the current level of support given to women in Ghana. The study suggests that provision of sufficient level of support can make women more willing to challenge the status quo in power distance cultures and take personal initiatives, thereby leading to more formal entrepreneurial actions.

This study is a significant addition to women entrepreneurship literature because the role of culture in females’ intention to participate in entrepreneurship is generally an under-researched area. Besides, our examination of national cultural variation at the individual level on formal entrepreneurship intention in a heterogeneous setting is novel. The study also highlights the buffering roles of perceived support on the destructive consequences of power distance cultural orientation on formal entrepreneurial development among women.