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1 – 10 of 13Dirk van Dierendonck, Lin Xiu and Feng Lv
This article provides deeper insights into the measurement of servant leadership within the Chinese culture. Servant leadership is viewed as a responsible leadership style that is…
Abstract
Purpose
This article provides deeper insights into the measurement of servant leadership within the Chinese culture. Servant leadership is viewed as a responsible leadership style that is beneficial to organizations by awaking, engaging and developing employees and working from a sense of service and stewardship for the world with a long-term perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper consists of a survey study that examines the relationships between 5 servant leadership measures translated into Chinese and outcome measures using a sample of 463 participants.
Findings
The authors' results show that the five measures are very comparable. Although some differences exist, the combined conclusions from internal consistency, intercorrelations and correlations to outcome variables and factor analysis confirmed their overall commonality. A core group of 11 items is introduced as a potential scale to represent the underlying variance of all 55 items.
Originality/value
This study validates how the five instruments are grounded in the core aspects of servant leadership described by Robert Greenleaf, the service aspect of choosing to become a leader and the importance for a leader to give attention to the followers' personal growth, meaningful work and well-being.
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This research proposes, building on social exchange theory and the componential theory of creativity, a model of servant leadership to investigate its effect on followers'…
Abstract
Purpose
This research proposes, building on social exchange theory and the componential theory of creativity, a model of servant leadership to investigate its effect on followers' creativity through the intervening mechanism of climate for creativity in the hospitality industry, operating in a non-Western context.
Design/methodology/approach
The study predicted that climate for creativity will play a significant intervening role in the servant leadership–creativity relationship. The study’s data were collected from 232 employees working in 70 Palestinian hotels. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses along with techniques used to reduce common method bias.
Findings
The results revealed the significance of climate for creativity as a partial mediator in the relationship between servant leadership and followers' creativity.
Practical implications
The results might be useful for hotel managers in the context of utilizing servant leadership roles for fostering a creative climate. They might, therefore, consider placing servant leaders as a recruitment agenda priority.
Originality/value
This research is novel in three ways. First, its aim is to enrich the empirical literature on servant leadership, which is still in a maturity stage. Second, even with the research studies that are available, limited analysis is found on how servant leadership can stimulate employees' behaviors in the hospitality industry. Third, the study has been conducted in a non-Western context, in contrast to most servant leadership research studies being carried out in Western countries.
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Sherrie Human, Thomas Clark, Charles H. Matthews, Julie Stewart and Candace Gunnarsson
Relatively few comparative studies have examined how perceptions across cultures might converge or diverge regarding careers in general and new venture careers in particular. Our…
Abstract
Relatively few comparative studies have examined how perceptions across cultures might converge or diverge regarding careers in general and new venture careers in particular. Our research addresses this gap by providing a comparative study of career perceptions among undergraduate business students in three countries with different levels of experience with capitalism: Ukraine, South Korea, and the United States. Results suggest both surprising differences and interesting similarities between undergraduate students in the three countries with regard to how they perceive characteristics associated with entrepreneurial careers. Findings are discussed in the context of distinct differences and commonalities across cultures and implications for future research provided.
Although there is growing research on the relationship between servant leadership and job performance, limited research examined conditions under which servant leadership is more…
Abstract
Purpose
Although there is growing research on the relationship between servant leadership and job performance, limited research examined conditions under which servant leadership is more effective. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether employee-oriented human resource policy is shaping the relation between servant leadership and job performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical research was carried out among 263 organizations operating in Poland. To verify formulated hypotheses, statistical reasoning with moderator was made using model 1 of SPSS Macro Process.
Findings
The present study has proved that employee-oriented human resource policy may act as a moderator between servant leadership and job performance strengthening this relation. Integrating human resource policy with leadership is important to reach a better understanding of how human resource and leadership can influence employee performance.
Originality/value
The current study provides a practical implication for organizations to train managers with leadership skills to improve the job performance of their employees.
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Weilin Su, Bei Lyu, Hui Chen and Yanzi Zhang
With the rapid development of the service industry, service innovation has gradually become a hot topic in business today. How to further improve employees' service innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rapid development of the service industry, service innovation has gradually become a hot topic in business today. How to further improve employees' service innovative behaviors has become critical to organizations' survival and success. Servant leadership, as a leadership style characterized by serving others, is closely related to employees' service innovative behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework to examine the influence of servant leadership on employees' service innovative behavior, the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and the moderating role of identification with the leader.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the theoretical model, a multi-time survey method was used to collect data from 381employees from a large high-tech company in Mainland China.
Findings
The results confirm that servant leadership can promote employees' service innovative behavior and intrinsic motivation. Meanwhile, employees' intrinsic motivation partly mediates the influence of servant leadership on their service innovative behavior. Moreover, this mediating relationship is conditional on the moderating role of individual identification with the leader in the path from servant leadership to individual intrinsic motivation.
Research limitations/implications
The key limitation of this study lies in the representativeness of sample data, which is the convenience of non-probability sampling and self-reported data only from a large high-tech company in China.
Practical implications
This study not only further verified a promotion factor of individual service innovative behavior from the perspective of leader influence, but also enriched the understanding of the positive influence of servant leadership on employees.
Originality/value
This study is the first to examine the relationships among servant leadership, employees' intrinsic motivation, identification with the leader and service innovative behavior. The results may help to open the “black box” of the relationship between servant leadership and employees' service innovative behavior by introducing their intrinsic motivation. The conclusions also indicate employees' identification with the leader is an important boundary condition among their relationships. Particularly, it not only moderates the relationship between servant leadership and intrinsic motivation, but also moderates the mediating role of intrinsic motivation.
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Shubhi Gupta, Govind Swaroop Pathak and Baidyanath Biswas
This paper aims to determine the impact of perceived virtuality on team dynamics and outcomes by adopting the Input-Mediators-Outcome (IMO) framework. Further, it also…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the impact of perceived virtuality on team dynamics and outcomes by adopting the Input-Mediators-Outcome (IMO) framework. Further, it also investigates the mediating role of team processes and emergent states.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected survey data from 315 individuals working in virtual teams (VTs) in the information technology sector in India using both offline and online questionnaires. They performed the analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The authors investigated two sets of hypotheses – both direct and indirect (or mediation interactions). Results show that psychological empowerment and conflict management are significant in managing VTs. Also, perceived virtuality impacts team outcomes, i.e. perceived team performance, team satisfaction and subjective well-being.
Research limitations/implications
The interplay between the behavioural team process (conflict management) and the emergent state (psychological empowerment) was examined. The study also helps broaden our understanding of the various psychological variables associated with teamwork in the context of VTs.
Practical implications
Findings from this study will aid in assessing the consequences of virtual teamwork at both individual and organisational levels, such as guiding the design and sustainability of VT arrangements, achieving higher productivity in VTs, and designing effective and interactive solutions in the virtual space.
Social implications
The study examined the interplay between behavioural team processes (such as conflict management) and emergent states (such as psychological empowerment). The study also theorises and empirically tests the relationships between perceived virtuality and team outcomes (i.e. both affective and effectiveness). It may serve as a guide to understanding team dynamics in VTs better.
Originality/value
This exploratory study attempts to enhance the current understanding of the research and practice of VTs within a developing economy.
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Shane Sizemore and Kimberly O'Brien
The purpose of the current study is to explain best practices for attempting humor in the workplace. Research on humor in the workplace has emphasized the use of leader humor but…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the current study is to explain best practices for attempting humor in the workplace. Research on humor in the workplace has emphasized the use of leader humor but has neglected to provide guidance on how to successfully use humor. This is an important gap because unsuccessful humor attempts are associated with lowered status and disruptive behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper summarizes three types of humor theories (i.e. cognitive, social and contextual) and derives principles from these theories that can be applied to improve humor success. Then, the authors apply the understanding of humor to workplace applications, providing suggestions for future empirical research inferred from the humor theories.
Findings
Humor attempts are most likely to land (i.e. invoke mirth) when they include a benign violation of mental schemas, societal norms or other expectations or when humor evokes shared feelings of benign superiority in the audience. Humor is less effective in goal-directed situations. Mirth is expected to increase group cohesion, leader trust and organizational identification and mitigate the effects of job stressors. Finally, employee learning and development activities (e.g. onboarding, training) seem like a good place to use humor to facilitate cognitive flexibility.
Originality/value
These suggestions from across psychological disciplines are synthesized to inform best practices for leader humor.
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Sonakshi Gupta and Ranjeet Nambudiri
The purpose of the article is to discuss the characteristics of a Servant Leader and assist practitioners in developing Servant Leadership.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the article is to discuss the characteristics of a Servant Leader and assist practitioners in developing Servant Leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper focuses on ten characteristics of a Servant leader as discussed by Greenleaf & Spears and discusses ways in which one can develop these characteristics.
Findings
The crucial contribution of the paper is to present a framework that would help practitioners and managers in Servant Leadership development.
Research limitations/implications
The implications of the paper are focused on managers and practitioners who are interested in Servant Leadership Development.
Originality/value
The paper develops a framework that focuses on the development of Servant Leadership based on Spears and Greenleaf’s characterization of Servant Leadership.
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