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Based on social information processing theory, this paper aims to explore how and when leader self-deprecating humor may spark subordinate learning from failure. The authors cast perspective taking as a novel explanatory mechanism for this indirect effect, and further consider leader–member exchange as a boundary condition of the relationship.

The authors tested the hypotheses by conducting a multiwave and multisource survey of 604 members from 152 teams in a Chinese high-technology company.

Results of multilevel path analyses demonstrate that leader self-deprecating humor positively influences subordinate learning from failure via perspective taking. Further, this mediation effect is stronger at higher levels of leader–member exchange.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the relationship between leader self-deprecating humor and subordinate learning from failure. However, the research design was not longitudinal or experimental, and thus the authors were unable to make strong inferences about absolute causality.

The work yields useful insights for practitioners aiming to encourage subordinates to learn from failure.

This study provides evidence that leader self-deprecating humor can stimulate subordinate learning from failure via perspective taking, and the indirect effect is further strengthened by leader–member exchange. The findings offer new directions for research on leader self-deprecating humor and learning from failure.

Work–family research has established the existence of a crossover effect, wherein a given perception is transferable between two intimate persons. However, little research has been done to delineate this crossover process. Therefore, grounded in the conservation of resources theory, the present study aims to examine why and how a supervisor’s work–family conflict (WFC) is related to his or her subordinates’ WFC. The authors focus on three resource-related mechanisms and explore the consequences of subordinates’ WFC.

Questionnaire surveys were collected from 180 supervisor–subordinate dyads from five hotels. Mplus was used to test the framework.

The results support the notion that supervisor’s negative affect and subordinate’s workload account for the crossover effect of WFC. Moreover, subordinates’ WFC is found to be related to lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intention.

The current study highlights the downward effect of supervisors’ WFC, a phenomenon that has been understudied in the extant research. Alternative mediators or moderators in the relationship between supervisors’ WFC and subordinates’ WFC can be explored by future research.

Hotels should help supervisors to effectively manage the work and family dynamic through training and changing the “face time” culture.

Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, the authors propose a framework that incorporates WFC into the crossover model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate dimensions of employee silence in Indian work context with regard to the supervisors and how job satisfaction mediates the relationship between silence and turnover intention. The study also explores the relevance of superior-subordinate relationship and self-image maintenance perspectives in Indian socio-cultural context to explain and understand the phenomenon of silence in India.

Qualitative (n=55) and quantitative data (n=334, n=314 and n=116) were collected from employees working in private, public and multinational organizations located in northern part of India. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to explore and validate the dimensions of silence behavior among Indian managers and structural equation analysis was carried out to see the meditating role of job satisfaction in the relationship of silence and turnover intention.

Results have indicated the existence of four major dimensions of silence in India namely; fear of retaliation, internal motivation, self-competence and self-image as the possible causes of silence. Further job satisfaction has mediated the effect of silence on turnover intention. This study showed the positive impact of silence on satisfaction which is contrary to the western studies. These results have supported the theoretical arguments developed in this paper in the Indian work context.

The results are useful in understanding the dynamics of silence in Indian organizations as employees might use silence in a strategic manner to regulate their satisfaction and in maintaining their membership with the organization.

The present study is among the first attempts to empirically examine the causes and consequences of employee silence in the high power distance and collectivistic cultural context.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the model that explains transformational leadership in perceptions of subordinates from Lithuanian organizations and to find out the interactive predictive value of perceivers’ personality traits and social identification.

The self-administered questionnaires that consisted of global transformational leadership scale, social identification questionnaire and NEO-FFI from 505 employees provided data for this study. Cross-sectional methodology, group comparison, correlational and linear regression analyses, structural equation modeling were used to answer the main research questions.

Results of this study suggest that integrative model in which social identification and neuroticism are predictors of perceived transformational leadership and extraversion and agreeableness have links with social identification explains how subordinates perceive transformational leadership. More extraverted and agreeable subordinates tend to report higher levels of social identification with work-unit that together with less emotional stability are related to seeing leader as more transformational.

Self-report data may bias the results due to social desirability. Future research should include group’s and individual’s prototypes as important variables in the model that explains perceived transformational leadership.

Data of the study revealed that social characteristics of subordinates are important factors in a process of meaning making about a leader. Moreover, human resource managers should be aware that different team building interventions are recommended to employees with different personality profiles.

This study is based on a leading transformational leadership theory from under-estimated follower-centric perspective. In addition, it specifically examines interactive predictive value of individual and social subordinates’ characteristics to perceived transformational leadership.

Drawing on the attribution theory, this study re-examined the effect of supervisor-subordinate guanxi (SSG) on counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) by highlighting the critical moderating role of job self-efficacy and the mediating role of psychological entitlement, with the aim of revealing the potential drawbacks of SSG.

Three-wave matched data were collected from 434 employees working in China. The authors adopted path analysis in Mplus 7.4 to test the hypotheses proposed in this study.

The results suggested that among subordinates with high job self-efficacy, SSG triggers psychological entitlement, which subsequently leads to CWBs.

This research challenges the prevailing consensus regarding the beneficial effects of SSG on subordinate management from the social exchange theory perspective by revealing when and why high-quality SSG can also engender subordinates’ psychological entitlement and subsequent CWBs. By doing so, this study provides a more dialectical view of the impact of establishing high-quality SSG in human resource management.

Following from the cutting-edge work of Stephen Wolfram in A New Kind of Science (2002), in this chapter we propose “a new kind of OB” (organizational behavior) based on the varient approach to theory building and testing. In particular, we offer four simple, yet comprehensive theories to account for individual behavior, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, and collectivized processes in organizations. In each case, two constructs, their association, and the levels of analysis of their operation are proposed. While the four theories proposed here are simple notions, they can explain a variety of complex phenomena and behavior in organizations.

The current study seeks to provide predictions for task conflict in supervisor‐subordinate dyads and to test empirically the mediation effects of task conflict between organizational culture/subordinate values and subordinate outcomes.

Structural equation modeling was employed to test the theoretical model.

It was found that task conflict mediates the relationship between a clan culture and intention to quit. Additionally, support was also found for the mediating effect of task conflict on the relationship between individualistic values and intention to quit.

More research is needed to take into consideration the variables influencing task conflict in both vertical and horizontal dyadic relationships. A dynamic view of conflict may further contribute to the existing literature.

More remedies are needed in organizations to foster positive employees' attitudes and wellbeing through the generation of task conflicts. For example, fostering a clan culture instead of a hierarchy may be vital.

The current study demonstrates that organizational culture/subordinate's values may be linked to different subordinate outcomes through task conflict.

There are many studies of personality and leadership and gender and leadership, but only few leadership studies have taken into account both personality and gender. That may partly be due to the fact that there are relatively few female leaders, however, the aim of this paper is to discover if similar personality types exhibit the same kind of leadership behavior irrespective of gender.

The quantitative analysis involves 459 leaders (283 men and 176 women) and 378 subordinates working in various fields. Leaders rated their leadership behavior and subordinates also appraised them.

Results indicated differences in leadership behavior by gender, in that women exhibited more enabling behavior, and men more challenging behavior. Further, gender and personality had an impact on leadership behavior, as viewed by both leaders and subordinates. For example, extraverted and intuitive male leaders along with those exhibiting the perceiving dimension regarded themselves as more challenging than their introverted, sensing and judging male counterparts, a view confirmed by subordinates in the case of perceiving male leaders.

As limitations, the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator offers only one view of the personality, and future studies would be needed with different methods. Also the study did not control confounding factors, and it should be taken into account with the study.

From a practical view point, this study offers specific knowledge for people seeking to develop themselves as leaders.

Very few studies have concentrated on the relationship between personality and gender in the transformational leadership context, and this study provides a new perspective on this area.

The present study aims to ascertain the relationships between subordinate moqi and leader behaviors, by primarily discussing how and when subordinate moqi is associated with leadership empowerment.

A self-report study was conducted by recruiting 334 employees from 13 firms. All concepts were rated on a seven-point Likert-type response scale. Linear regression analysis (conducted in MPLUS 7) was conducted to verify the hypotheses.

First, subordinate moqi showed positive association with empowerment. Second, trust-in-supervisor mediated the relationships between subordinate moqi and empowerment. Third, subordinates' power distance orientation (PDO) could moderate the subordinate moqi – leader empowerment relationship. When subordinates reported higher PDO, the relationships between subordinate moqi and empowerment were more robust; likewise, subordinate moqi would have more significantly indirectly impacted empowerment via trust-in-supervisor.

Though researchers have discussed the impacts of subordinate moqi on subordinates' outcomes, the impact of subordinate moqi on supervisors' attitudes or behaviors remains unclear. The relationships between subordinate moqi and supervisor empowerment behaviors are empirically ascertained by emphasizing the leader-subordinate dyadic process. The findings here suggested that subordinate moqi boosted subordinates' trust-in-supervisor, and moqi would also predict the behaviors of leader empowerment. This study extended the PDO literature by identifying the moderating role of PDO in the subordinate moqi – leader empowerment behavior relationship.