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Based on the leadership, entrepreneurship, and issue selling literature, we hypothesized that entrepreneurs who are perceived to be successful can be differentiated from unsuccessful entrepreneurs based on their degree and type of social power. We conducted a field experiment including 305 Malaysian managers with considerable experience in working with entrepreneurs and in entrepreneurial environments. Entrepreneurs perceived to be successful were ascribed greater referent, information, expert, connection, and reward power; less coercive power; and similar legitimate power than unsuccessful entrepreneurs. These results provide evidence in support of social power as a distinguishing individual characteristic of successful entrepreneurs and make a contribution to theories linking social capital with entrepreneurial success. Aspiring entrepreneurs need to be aware that their social power profile is associated with various degrees of perceived success. Our paper points to the need to investigate variables beyond personality and that are more directly relevant to social and interpersonal interactions that may differentiate entrepreneurs perceived to be successful from those who are not.

Building upon the “fair exchange in leadership” notion (Hollander; Scandura), the purpose of this paper was to hypothesize the mediating impact of procedural justice climate on the relationship between leader‐member exchange (LMX) and two attitudinal outcomes: organizational commitment and turnover intentions.

A total of 224 managers voluntarily participated in the study. They represented nine multinational companies located in northern Malaysia. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire containing widely used scales to measure LMX (contribution, affect, loyalty, and professional respect), procedural justice climate, organizational commitment (affective, normative, and continuance), and turnover intentions. After establishing the goodness of measures, hypothesized relationships were examined using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). While commitment and LMX were, respectively, conceptualized as 3‐ and 4‐dimensional constructs, procedural justice climate and turnover intentions were each treated as unidimensional constructs.

Whereas hypotheses for direct effects received low‐to‐moderate support, the mediation hypothesis received substantial support only in the case of professional respect dimension of LMX.

The study has obvious implications for leader‐member exchange and procedural justice in organizations. Though findings are in line with those in the past research, they should be viewed with caution – given the nature of cross‐sectional data.

Management needs to pay attention to the quality of LMX, as today's employees look for mutual trust.