A multilevel model of transformational leadership,affect, and creative process behavior in work teams

We develop a multilevel model to explain how affect and transformational leadership (TFL) influence team creative process behavior. We theorize, in particular, that a dual-level model of TFL, which incorporates both individual-focused TFL (addressing the individual differences of team members) and group-focused TFL (addressing the team as a whole) underlies affect–creativity relationships. We argue moreover that these effects exist across three conceptual levels: (1) within-person, (2) interpersonal, and (3) group. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications and limitations of our model and suggest potential avenues for future research.     

Transformational leadership climate: Performance linkages, mechanisms, and boundary conditions at the organizational level

Transformational leadership (TFL) climate describes the degree to which leaders throughout an organization engage in TFL behaviors. In this study, we investigate performance linkages, mechanisms, and boundary conditions of TFL climate at the organizational level of analysis. In a sample of 158 independent organizations, 18,094 employees provided data on TFL climate, positive affective climate, trust climate, and employees' task performance behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, human resource managers rated overall employee productivity. Study results yielded a pattern of moderated mediation for overall employee productivity and employees' aggregate task performance behavior, in that an organization's TFL climate was indirectly (through positive affective climate) related with these outcome variables under conditions of high trust climate, but not under conditions of low trust climate. Further, we found an organization's TFL climate to indirectly relate with employees' aggregate organizational citizenship behavior through positive affective climate, largely independent of the level of trust climate.     

Workplace bullying as predicted by non-prototypicality,group identification and norms: a self-categorisation perspective

ABSTRACT

Research and theory on deviance in work groups suggest that non-prototypical members risk devaluation and mistreatment by their peers. Drawing on the self-categorisation theory, we propose and test a contextual model to explain workplace bullying from a target perspective, using non-prototypicality as a predictor and social identification and anti-bullying norms at the work group level as two- and three-way cross-level moderators. Multilevel modelling and a sample of employees from the university sector in the Low Lands (n?=?572) was employed. In line with our first hypothesis, we found that risk of exposure to workplace bullying is particularly high for non-prototypical work group members. We also hypothesised that work group social identification would facilitate bullying of non-prototypical members, while anti-bullying norms would buffer it. Results showed, however, that both conditions acted as buffering moderators on the main association. Lastly, the combination of the two also entailed a cross-level three-way interaction effect, showing that non-prototypicality is associated with bullying only in work groups characterised by low levels on both moderators. These novel and partly unexpected results demonstrate the relevance and significance of group level explanations for workplace bullying, holding significant implications for scholars and practitioners.     

Multilevel relationships between organizational-level incivility,justice and intention to stay

Abstract

This study extends incivility theory and research by applying multilevel theory and analysis to explain the effect of group-level incivility on intention to remain. Previous research has shown that experiencing workplace incivility is associated with adverse individual well-being and behaviour, such as turnover intentions, but the majority of research has been at the individual level of analysis. Consequently it is unknown whether incivility is also a group-level phenomenon, and what the effects of group-level incivility are on the individual. Results from over 34,000 employees working in 179 organizations across Australia and New Zealand showed that target reports of incivility could be aggregated to the level of the organization to form a shared stressor, incivility environment, which affected employees’ intention to remain over and above their personal experience of incivility. This shared or environmental incivility also had a cross-level interaction effect on the negative relationship between individual incivility and intention to remain, highlighting the importance of context on targets of incivility. The role of interactional justice climate was also examined and the data are consistent with justice having a mediating effect on the cross-level relationship between environmental incivility and intention to remain. The findings are relevant to studies of bullying and harassment.     

Traditional Chinese leadership and employee voice behavior: A cross-level examination

To enhance the understanding of leadership influences on employee voice behavior, this study focused on traditional Chinese leadership (i.e., authoritarian leadership). We proposed that supervisor authoritarian leadership negatively affects employee voice behavior and manager authoritarian leadership has a cascading effect on such behavior through supervisor authoritarian leadership. Furthermore, these effects were either amplified or attenuated under different conditions (i.e., leader identification and power distance orientation). A cross-level investigation of voice behavior within 52 groups of employees from multiple Chinese companies in Beijing was conducted. The results showed that supervisor authoritarian leadership negatively affected employee voice behavior and mediated the negative relationship between manager authoritarian leadership and employee voice behavior. Leader identification moderated the indirect negative effect of manager authoritarian leadership on employee voice behavior via supervisor authoritarian leadership, while power distance orientation moderated the direct negative effect of supervisor authoritarian leadership on employee voice behavior.     

Peers,proactivity, and problem-solving: A multilevel study of team impacts on stress appraisals of problem-solving demands

ABSTRACT

To date, there is a paucity of research on team-level impacts on the individual stress appraisal process despite the recognised role of teams for solving problems. Applying a multilevel approach, this study investigates the cross-level impact of team problem prevention behaviours on employee stress appraisals of problem-solving demands. It was hypothesised that team problem prevention would moderate the individual-level relationship between problem-solving demands and stress appraisals. Data were collected from 43 work teams comprised of 192 team members including all team leaders who also provided evaluations of their team’s problem prevention behaviour. Results supported the hypothesised cross-level moderating effects on challenge appraisal, but not threat appraisal. As one of the first studies to demonstrate that stress appraisals are impacted by the group, not just by individual factors, the results support a multilevel conceptualisation of stress appraisals. The findings also highlight implications for practice, broadening the scope of possibilities for stress management interventions to utilise team-level strategies such as leadership development programmes and/or team building initiatives.     

Group Incentives and Performance: A Study of Spontaneous Goal Setting, Goal Choice and Commitment

Building on previous results at the individual level, this study tested the differential effects of three forms of group incentives on aspects of group goal setting, and group performance. Relationships among group incentives, spontaneous goal setting, chosen group goal level, goal commitment, and group performance were examined. Results indicate that placing pay at risk increased the level of spontaneous group goal setting. Also, groups with the most pay at risk chose higher goals. For these groups, chosen group goal level mediated the group incentives-group performance relationship.     

The Differential Effects of Transformational Leadership on Multiple Identifications at Work: A Meta‐analytic Model

Employees’ identifications are a valuable asset for modern organizations, and identification research has stressed the necessity to distinguish identifications according to their focus (i.e. organizational, team, or leader identification). Interestingly, transformational leadership (TFL) has been proposed to unfold its effects by transforming followers’ identifications and could thus be a powerful way to actively manage identification. However, it remains unclear whether TFL affects identifications with different foci similarly or whether it predominantly influences a specific focus. To resolve this puzzle, the authors conducted a meta‐analysis (k = 73; N = 20,543) and found that TFL (and each TFL sub‐dimension) is more strongly associated with leader identification than with organizational identification or team identification. By presenting a comprehensive model of TFL's effects on identifications, we show that leader identification mediates the relationships between TFL and collective identifications (i.e. organizational identification or team identification), illustrating that relational identification plays a crucial role in subsequently shaping collective identifications. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

创业者个体学习、组织学习如何交互影响企业创新行为？——基于整合视角的纵向单案例研究

社会经济的不断发展促使分工愈发精细,对个人与组织间的技术隔离也愈加明显,亟待创业者个体及组织开展跨层次的交互学习以构建组织创新优势。基于此,本文援引学习理论与意义构建视角,从"行动"与"解释"出发,采用纵向单案例研究方法,基于"个体-组织"整合性分析框架,探究了不同创业阶段内跨层次行动主体间的学习互动模型,揭示了其对企业创新的影响路径。研究发现:创业者个体学习与组织学习间的互动,表现为渐变初期个体利用式学习经"自上而下"团队互动主导形成组织单环式行动;而在调整转变期,个体学习与组织学习发生交互影响,包含个体探索式学习经"横向协同式"团队互动主导形成组织双环式行动,以及组织双环式行动转换为单环式之后,经由持续反思与质询,刺激形成创业者个体利用式学习;最后,在发展突变期,个体利用式学习经"制度化统筹式"团队交互合作促成组织单环式行动,同时个体探索式学习经"跨越层次自主式"团队交互激活组织双环式学习。此外,在不同创业阶段,3种互动逻辑与意义构建框架下的创新决定机制呈现出以个体创意激发与扩散、信息整合与匹配以及平衡矛盾与冲突3种不同的影响路径展开的态势。本研究为创业学习理论和创业实践过程贡献了新的启示。     

Toward a Systems Theory of Motivated Behavior in Work Teams

Work motivation theories and research have tended to focus either on individual motivation, ignoring contextual influences of team processes on individuals, or on team motivation, ignoring individual differences within the team. Redressing these limited, single-level views of motivation, we delineate a theoretical multilevel model of motivated behavior in teams. First, we conceptualize motivational processes at both the individual and team levels, highlighting the functional similarities in these processes across levels of analysis. We then delineate a set of theoretical propositions regarding the cross-level interplay between individual and team motivation, and antecedents and outcomes of individual and team motivation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our theoretical model for future research and managerial practices.     

Empowering leadership and managers' career perceptions: Examining effects at both the individual and the team level

In a multilevel model of leadership behavior, we investigated whether and how empowering leadership affects individuals' career perceptions. We developed a conceptual model that links empowering leadership at the individual level and at the group level (mean as well as dispersion) to individuals' career self-efficacy and career satisfaction. To test our model, we used questionnaire data from a multilevel data set of 2493 employees in leadership positions nested in 704 teams from a large German corporation. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that empowering leadership at the individual level was positively related to career self-efficacy, which in turn mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and career satisfaction. Empowering leadership at the group level was positively related to career self-efficacy when it was conceptualized as leadership differentiation (i.e., the standard deviation of empowering leadership ratings), but not when it was conceptualized as leadership climate (i.e., mean empowering leadership ratings). Career self-efficacy in turn mediated the relationship between empowering leadership differentiation and career satisfaction. Finally, we found a negative relationship between empowering leadership differentiation and career satisfaction.     

Leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behaviors: Contextual effects of leader power distance and group task interdependence

In this paper we explore the context of the relationship between leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). We maintain that workgroup leader's power distance and the extent of task interdependence in the group exert cross-level effects on the LMX-OCB relationship. We assert that leader power distance attenuates the relationship between LMX and OCB, and this effect is stronger in workgroups with high degree of task interdependence. Results of hierarchical linear modeling analysis of data gathered from 245 employees nested in 54 workgroups supported our hypotheses. LMX-OCB relationship was weaker in workgroups led by high power distance leaders. Further, the three-way cross-level interaction between LMX, leader power distance and group task interdependence demonstrated that the tendency for LMX to have a stronger positive effect on OCB when leader power distance was low rather than high was more pronounced in high task interdependence teams.     

Empowering Leadership,Psychological Empowerment and Employee Outcomes: Testing a Multi‐level Mediating Model

This study examined the effects of empowering leadership on employees in a customer service organization, using data from 266 employees and their supervisors from 41 work teams in a division of a large Hong Kong telecommunications corporation. Empowering leadership had acceptable levels of within‐group agreement and between‐group variability, providing support for its analysis as a group‐level construct. Testing a multi‐level model in which psychological empowerment was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between both within‐group and between‐group empowering leadership and individual outcomes, empowering leadership was associated with psychological empowerment at both levels. There was evidence of significant mediation effects at both the individual and group levels. These findings underline the importance of analysing both within‐group and between‐group differences in empowering leadership and their effects on individual attitudes and behaviours.     

Transformational leadership and optimal functioning at work: On the mediating role of employees' perceived job characteristics and motivation

This study aimed to deepen our understanding of the motivational mechanisms involved in the relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and employee functioning. Drawing on the TFL literature, the job demands–resources model and self-determination theory, we propose an integrative model that relates TFL to employee psychological health (burnout and psychological distress), attitudes (occupational commitment and turnover intention) and performance (professional efficacy, self-reported individual and objective organizational performance) through two explanatory mechanisms: perceived job characteristics (job demands and resources) and employee motivation (autonomous and controlled). This research was conducted in two occupational settings (nurses and school principals), using a distinct variable operationalization for each. Results of both studies provide support for the hypothesized model, suggesting that TFL relates to optimal job functioning (psychological health, job attitudes and performance) by contributing to favourable perceptions of job characteristics (more resources and less demands) and high-quality work motivation (more autonomous motivation and less controlled motivation) in employees. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are presented.     

Transformational leadership and performance outcomes: Analyses of multiple mediation pathways

Transformational leadership (TFL) has been shown to affect employees' job performance, and the literature offers a large variety of explanatory processes. Integrating the diverse literature related to the mechanisms that mediate the TFL-performance relationship, the current study identified five core mechanisms—affective, motivational, identification, social exchange, and justice enhancement—that are consistent with established social and psychological theories. Meta-analysis involving > 600 samples was conducted to test these mechanisms. General support was found for each of the five mechanisms. The findings showed that TFL was related to variables that represented these mechanisms, which in turn were associated with non-self-report measures of employees' task performance, citizenship behavior, and innovative behavior. An integrative model was further proposed and tested to show the central role of leader-member exchange in the relationships between TFL, other mediating variables, and performance outcomes. This study contributes to the literature by strengthening researchers' theoretical understanding of the major social and psychological processes by which transformational leaders promote followers' job performance.     

Transformational leadership and childrens' aggression in team settings: A short-term longitudinal study

Social learning theory posits that one crucial way individuals learn how to behave is by observing and modeling the behavior of salient others. We conducted a short-term longitudinal study using multisource data on 183 teenaged ice hockey players (M age = 13.39 years) in 16 hockey teams to test the effects of 3 potentially salient leadership influences (team coaches, team players, and parents) on players' on-ice aggression. We tested a cross-level mediated model in which player aggression (penalty minutes) as measured by referees was the criterion variable. After controlling for prior levels of player aggression, team-level aggression mediated the relationship between team-level coach transformational leadership and player aggression. Parents' transformational leadership did not influence player aggression when assessed simultaneously with team-level coach transformational leadership. Consistent with social learning theory, the findings suggest that transformational leaders model prosocial behavior for followers.     

An Empirical Study of the Effect of Knowledge Management Processes at Individual,Group, and Organizational Levels*

To enhance our understanding of knowledge management, this paper focuses on a specific question: How do knowledge management processes influence perceived knowledge management effectiveness? Prior literature is used to develop the research model, including hypotheses about the effects of four knowledge management processes (internalization, externalization, socialization, and combination) on perceived individual‐level, group‐level, and organizational‐level knowledge management effectiveness. The study was conducted at the John F. Kennedy Space Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration using a survey of 159 individuals and two rounds of personal interviews. Structural equation modeling was performed to test measurement and structural models using the survey data. The emergent model suggests that internalization and externalization impact perceived effectiveness of individual‐level knowledge management. Socialization and combination influence perceived effectiveness of knowledge management at group and organizational levels, respectively. The results also support the expected upward impact in perceived effectiveness of knowledge management, from individual to group level, as well as from group level to organizational level. The study's limitations and implications for practice and future research are described.     

非交易类虚拟社区成员参与动机：实证研究与管理启示

本项研究对虚拟社区的参与动机与参与行为进行实证分析,得出个体参与非交易类虚拟社区的九种动机,通过聚类分析构成个体和群体层面两大类动机.研究表明参与层次和参与时间主要受到其内隐动机和群体层面动机(尤其是认同感)的影响,参与频率主要受到其外显动机(尤其是信息动机)的影响.虚拟社区成功运营与良好集聚力的关键是虚拟社区对实体社会的"延伸、补充与强化"的程度,作为共同创造价值的互动场所,虚拟社区应该为不同参与动机的个体成员带来不同的体验与满足,这是虚拟社区的立足之本.     

Contextualizing Cultural Orientation and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This research attempts a more contextualized approach to examining organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Borrowing from theory in international and cross cultural management as well as organizational behavior, context is conceptualized as multi-level and as a shaper of meaning and variability in employee citizenship behaviors. By centralizing the unique socio-cultural, political and historical national context (i.e., omnibus context) of Lebanon at the core of our theorizing, we hypothesize, contrary to previous research, a positive relationship between idiocentrism and employee engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, we explore the influence that unit level OCB (i.e., discrete context) has on the idiocentrism–OCB relationship. Our analysis confirms the positive relationship between idiocentrism and OCB in this unique context. In addition, our cross-level analysis suggests that in workgroups with higher levels of unit level OCB, idiocentrism is more strongly related to employee engagement in OCB. The findings highlight the value added in contextualizing research on OCB and employee behavior in general.