Yuanjie Bao, Chaoping Li and Hao Zhao
The purpose of this paper is to compare two mediating mechanisms of servant leadership’s effect on followers’ work engagement: the social exchange mechanism (represented by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare two mediating mechanisms of servant leadership’s effect on followers’ work engagement: the social exchange mechanism (represented by leader-member exchange (LMX)) and the social learning mechanism (represented by public service motivation in Study 1 and prosocial motivation in Study 2).
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, the authors collected two-wave matched data from 216 public sector employees. In Study 2, the authors collected two-wave matched data from 178 private sector employees. The authors use hierarchical regression and bootstrapping to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Servant leadership is positively related to follower’s work engagement and this relationship is mediated by LMX, but not by public service motivation (Study 1) or prosocial motivation (Study 2). It suggests that servant leadership promotes followers’ work engagement mostly through the social exchange mechanism.
Research limitations/implications
The data were collected from Chinese employees, and future studies are necessary to verify the findings in other cultural contexts.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on a more nuanced picture of the effect mechanisms of servant leadership.
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This study's purpose is to examine ethical leadership's effect on followers' positive work behaviors, as mediated by prosocial motivation and moderated by job autonomy.
Abstract
Purpose
This study's purpose is to examine ethical leadership's effect on followers' positive work behaviors, as mediated by prosocial motivation and moderated by job autonomy.
Design/methodology/approach
Two-wave survey data were collected from 200 Chinese employees working in various industries. A hierarchical regression and a bootstrapping test were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Ethical leadership is positively related to followers' positive work behaviors, and prosocial motivation partially mediates this relationship. Job autonomy moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and prosocial motivation, as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on positive work behaviors via prosocial motivation.
Research limitations/implications
The findings' generalizability is limited because only Chinese employees were investigated and a snowball sampling method was used. Future research should utilize other sampling methods and explore other contexts to determine whether the results can be replicated.
Practical implications
Organizations should provide employees with greater behavioral discretion to benefit from the positive effects of ethical leadership. They should use selection and job design tools to boost their employees' prosocial motivation.
Originality/value
The extant literature has largely applied the cognitive process approach to link ethical leadership and positive behaviors, treating ethical leadership as a risk-reducing or reciprocity-inducing factor. This study introduces a responsive process approach whereby prosocial motivation is established as a mediator between ethical leadership and positive work behaviors. Also, job autonomy is identified as a boundary condition of ethical leadership's effect.
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Dege Liu, Yuanmei Lan and Chaoping Li
Previous research on narcissism and leadership seldom takes into account the leader–subordinate dyadic relationship and ignores the role of subordinate. Drawing on the contextual…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research on narcissism and leadership seldom takes into account the leader–subordinate dyadic relationship and ignores the role of subordinate. Drawing on the contextual reinforcement model of narcissism, the purpose of this study is to explore the joint effects of both leaders’ and their subordinates’ narcissism on the former’s effectiveness through the latter’s perceived relationship conflict with them (RCWL).
Design/methodology/approach
Self-report data were collected from 315 full-time employees using a three-wave survey. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results of this study reveal that although RCWL is higher when leaders’ narcissism is higher along both congruence and incongruence line, RCWL is lower when leaders’ narcissism exceeds that of their subordinates than it falls short of subordinates’ narcissism when both leader’s and subordinate’s narcissism are low. Furthermore, the results of this study also demonstrate that leader–subordinate (in)congruence in narcissism has an indirect influence on the leaders’ effectiveness because of the resulting relationship conflict, and that the response surface of the total effect of joint narcissism on leader effectiveness possesses a convex surface, which demonstrates that leader effectiveness is lower at the median point when compared to the low- and high-level congruence points.
Originality/value
This study not only contributes to fit theory, vertical relational conflict and research on narcissistic leader by simultaneously investigating both leaders’ and subordinates’ narcissism and their joint influence on leader–subordinate relational conflict and leaders’ effectiveness but also offers several practical recommendations for companies to enhance leaders’ effectiveness.
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Nengsheng Bao, Yuchen Fan, Chaoping Li and Alessandro Simeone
Lubricating oil leakage is a common issue in thermal power plant operation sites, requiring prompt equipment maintenance. The real-time detection of leakage occurrences could…
Abstract
Purpose
Lubricating oil leakage is a common issue in thermal power plant operation sites, requiring prompt equipment maintenance. The real-time detection of leakage occurrences could avoid disruptive consequences caused by the lack of timely maintenance. Currently, inspection operations are mostly carried out manually, resulting in time-consuming processes prone to health and safety hazards. To overcome such issues, this paper proposes a machine vision-based inspection system aimed at automating the oil leakage detection for improving the maintenance procedures.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach aims at developing a novel modular-structured automatic inspection system. The image acquisition module collects digital images along a predefined inspection path using a dual-light (i.e. ultraviolet and blue light) illumination system, deploying the fluorescence of the lubricating oil while suppressing unwanted background noise. The image processing module is designed to detect the oil leakage within the digital images minimizing detection errors. A case study is reported to validate the industrial suitability of the proposed inspection system.
Findings
On-site experimental results demonstrate the capabilities to complete the automatic inspection procedures of the tested industrial equipment by achieving an oil leakage detection accuracy up to 99.13%.
Practical implications
The proposed inspection system can be adopted in industrial context to detect lubricant leakage ensuring the equipment and the operators safety.
Originality/value
The proposed inspection system adopts a computer vision approach, which deploys the combination of two separate sources of light, to boost the detection capabilities, enabling the application for a variety of particularly hard-to-inspect industrial contexts.
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Yiming Wang, Doudou Liu and Chaoping Li
This bibliometric literature review aims to uncover the (1) intellectual foundations and (2) topical evolution in the field of career aspiration research.
Abstract
Purpose
This bibliometric literature review aims to uncover the (1) intellectual foundations and (2) topical evolution in the field of career aspiration research.
Design/methodology/approach
We employed the systematic literature review methodology following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. According to the predetermined criteria, 286 articles were included from the Web of Science database. Then, we employed performance analysis, science mapping and natural language processing to address our research objectives.
Findings
Co-citation analysis uncovered four foundational themes: (1) gender and leadership aspiration, (2) Social Cognitive Career Theory, (3) process of career development and (4) adolescents’ career aspiration. Moreover, co-word analysis showed that scholarly foci have shifted from adolescents’ career development to diverse streams. This shift was indicated by the exploration of additional research samples, such as university students, and topics related to specific aspirations (e.g. entrepreneurial and managerial aspirations) and gender issues (e.g. women leadership and gender stereotypes).
Research limitations/implications
Although this review has limitations related to data selection, it presents implications for practice, theory and future research on career aspirations.
Originality/value
The study illuminated the past and development of a research domain, thus advancing the understanding of career aspirations and inspiring future research.
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David N. Herda, James J. Lavelle, John R. Lauck, Randall F. Young, Stuart M. Smith and Chaoping Li
Prior research finds that auditors can be distinctively committed to multiple workplace targets (e.g., their audit firm, supervisors, profession, and clients). This study…
Abstract
Prior research finds that auditors can be distinctively committed to multiple workplace targets (e.g., their audit firm, supervisors, profession, and clients). This study investigates an underexamined target of auditor commitment – engagement teams. Given that these teams are responsible for performing key audit tasks for clients and external stakeholders, we argue that auditors' commitment to their team can affect auditor behavior. Using a sample of 121 auditors, our results indicate that quality social exchange relationships between individual auditors and their engagement teams, activated by perceptions of team fairness, and reciprocated with team commitment, are associated with beneficial group-oriented behavior. Specifically, we posit and find that perceived team fairness predicts perceived team support, perceived team support predicts team commitment, and team commitment predicts citizenship behavior directed toward the engagement team (e.g., helping the team by taking on extra responsibilities during an audit). We also find that the social exchange proxies of perceived team support and team commitment sequentially mediate the positive effect of perceived team fairness on team citizenship behavior, and that team commitment is a stronger predictor of team citizenship behavior than auditors' commitment to their firm.
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This study uses a budgeting experiment to examine the effects of peer influence and firm earnings position on managerial honesty. In the experiment, participants report production…
Abstract
This study uses a budgeting experiment to examine the effects of peer influence and firm earnings position on managerial honesty. In the experiment, participants report production costs to request funds from the firm based on their actual private cost information. The firm’s earnings position is manipulated at two levels, a gain condition and an edge condition, and the authors find that participants overstate costs (i.e., are less honest) to a greater extent in the dishonest peer influence condition than in the honest peer influence condition. The authors also find that the effect of peer influence on managerial honesty is context dependent. Specifically, participants respond to both dishonest and honest peer influence in the gain condition but they do not respond to peer influence in the edge condition. This study provides evidence for honest peer influence on honesty and it highlights the role of earnings position on the effect of peer influence on honesty. Controlling the disclosure of certain peer information is not possible because individuals can learn about peer information (honest or dishonest) formally or informally. Such uncontrollable peer information may be harmful to firms. The results suggest firms that provide managers with the consequences of managerial budgeting on the firm operational outcomes can neutralize the effect of peer influence on managerial honesty when managers’ budgeting decisions significantly affect firm profits.
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Zifan Zhou, Yufeng Duan, Junping Qiu and Li Yang
This article intends to explore how organizational learning affects innovation in public library services, and the role of public librarians in innovation in library services.
Abstract
Purpose
This article intends to explore how organizational learning affects innovation in public library services, and the role of public librarians in innovation in library services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected 375 valid questionnaires from 19 public libraries in Shanghai and Zhejiang based on organizational learning, organizational innovation and employee psychological empowerment theory. Additionally, SPSS and HLM are used to analyze the relationship among the three processes of organizational learning: knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge application, and public library service innovation.
Findings
Results show that organizational learning has a significant positive effect on the service innovation of public libraries. Knowledge acquisition and knowledge application in the process of organizational learning have a significant positive influence on the service innovation of public libraries, but the impact of knowledge sharing on service innovation is weak. Employee psychological empowerment has a negative regulating influence on knowledge sharing–public library service innovation, but no significant influence on knowledge application–public library service innovation and knowledge acquisition–public library service innovation.
Originality/value
This research explores the effectiveness of the theory of organizational learning in the field of public libraries and also confirms the role of librarians in the work of public libraries. Together, they promote the innovation of public libraries.
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Mengxi Yang, Wansi Chen, Qingyu Zhou, Baiyin Yang and Cheng Xu
China after 1949, especially since entering the 21st century, significant progress has been made in leadership research under Chinese context. However, so far there has been no…
Abstract
Purpose
China after 1949, especially since entering the 21st century, significant progress has been made in leadership research under Chinese context. However, so far there has been no systematic review and prospect of China's leadership research in the past 70 years. Therefore, with the help of scientific visualization software Citespace, this paper analyzes the research papers on leadership in the context of China from the top international journals of management science and applied psychology (1949–2018), supplemented and verified the previous research conclusions based on qualitative review, and quantitatively demonstrated the research evolution of leadership field.
Design Methodology Approach
Using a scientific visualization tool CiteSpace and 145 international leadership works, which were published in 64 top international journals and collected from the Web of Science database, and 852 domestic works which were published in 28 top domestic journals and collected from the CNKI database from 1949 to 2018, we draws keyword co-occurrence knowledge graph and keyword strategy map to visualize the landscape and evolution of leadership research and analyze the hot topics and research trends in the field of leadership.
Findings
The research found that: (1) Before 2002, there were only 7 articles published in 64 international top journal, mainly focusing on Western leadership theories such as transformational, cross-cultural comparison and the adaptability in Chinese context; (2) From 2003 to 2012, scholars had begun to introduce mainstream quantitative research paradigm in international academic community; (3) From 2013 to 2018, researches tended to be synchronized, with 461 and 99 papers published respectively. How emerging leaderships (such as ethical leadership) affect on various emerging outcome variables (such as creativity, voice behavior, unethical pro-organizational behavior etc.) is hot topic for future research.
Originality Value
Different from the previous qualitative reviews on organizational culture research, this paper, for the first time, uses bibliometric research methods to systematically analyze the evolution path of leadership research during the 70 years of China(1949–2018, and puts forward the future research prospects.