An examination of the mediating role of psychological empowerment on the relations between the job, interpersonal relationships, and work outcomes.

A field investigation of 337 employees and their immediate superiors tested the mediating role of empowerment in relations between job characteristics, leader–member exchange (LMX), team–member exchange (TMX), and work outcomes. The meaning and competence dimensions of empowerment mediated the relation between job characteristics and work satisfaction. The meaning dimension also mediated the relation between job characteristics and organizational commitment. Contrary to prediction, empowerment did not mediate relations between LMX, TMX, and the outcome variables. Rather, LMX and TMX were directly related to organizational commitment. In addition, TMX was directly related to job performance. These findings suggest that work satisfaction is explained largely by job characteristics (through empowerment) but that LMX and TMX combine with job characteristics and empowerment to explain variation in organizational commitment and job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Climate as a moderator of the relationship between leader-member exchange and content specific citizenship: Safety climate as an exemplar.

The present study integrates role theory, social exchange, organizational citizenship, and climate research to suggest that employees will reciprocate implied obligations of leadership-based social exchange (e.g., leader-member exchange [LMX]) by expanding their role and behaving in ways consistent with contextual behavioral expectations (e.g., work group climate). Using safety climate as an exemplar, the authors found that the relationship between LMX and subordinate safety citizenship role definitions was moderated by safety climate. In summary, high-quality LMX relationships resulted in expanded safety citizenship role definitions when there was a positive safety climate and there was no such expansion under less positive safety climates. The authors also found that safety citizenship role definitions were significantly related to safety citizenship behavior. Implications for both social exchange theory and safety research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee retaliation: The neglected consequence of poor leader–member exchange relations.

Although the beneficial effects of high-quality leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships have been well-documented in the leadership literature, much less is known about the potentially damaging effects of poor exchange relationships. Using 150 intact leader–member dyads, the authors investigated the relationship between LMX and supervisors' reports of employee retaliation behavior, performance, and citizenship. Results indicated that performance and citizenship were positively related to LMX. More important, LMX was negatively correlated with retaliation behavior. Supervisors reported that subordinates in poor exchange relationships were more likely to engage in retaliation against the organization than subordinates in high-quality relationships. The lack of a high-quality exchange relationship was, therefore, not just associated with the absence of positive consequences but also led to reports of potentially disruptive behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams.

A multilevel model of leadership, empowerment, and performance was tested using a sample of 62 teams, 445 individual members, 62 team leaders, and 31 external managers from 31 stores of a Fortune 500 company. Leader-member exchange and leadership climate related differently to individual and team empowerment and interacted to influence individual empowerment. Also, several relationships were supported in more but not in less interdependent teams. Specifically, leader-member exchange related to individual performance partially through individual empowerment; leadership climate related to team performance partially through team empowerment; team empowerment moderated the relationship between individual empowerment and performance; and individual performance was positively related to team performance. Contributions to team leadership theory, research, and practices are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Support from the top: Supervisors' perceived organizational support as a moderator of leader-member exchange to satisfaction and performance relationships.

The authors hypothesized that supervisors' perceived organizational support (POS) would moderate the relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX), job satisfaction, and job performance. On the basis of social exchange theory, supervisors' exchanges with the organization and subordinates should be interconnected. The authors expected that supervisors with high POS would have more resources to exchange with subordinates. Thus, supervisor POS should enhance the relationships between LMX and job satisfaction and LMX and job performance for subordinates. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses in a sample of 210 subordinates and 38 supervisors of a grocery store chain. The positive relationship between LMX and job satisfaction was stronger when supervisors had high POS. Moreover, LMX was related to performance only when supervisors had high POS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived overqualification and its outcomes: The moderating role of empowerment.

Research shows that perceived overqualification is related to lower job attitudes and greater withdrawal behaviors but to higher supervisor ratings of performance. Drawing upon relative deprivation theory, the authors proposed and tested empowerment as a moderator of the relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction, intentions to remain, voluntary turnover, and objective sales performance to examine if negative outcomes could be lessened while stimulating even higher performance. Hierarchical linear modeling results from a sample of 244 sales associates working in 25 stores of a Turkish retail chain show that empowerment ameliorated the negative effects of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction, intentions to remain, and voluntary turnover. Empowerment did not affect the positive relationship between perceived overqualification and objective sales performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In-role perceptions buffer the negative impact of low LMX on helping and enhance the positive impact of high LMX on voice.

In 2 field studies, we demonstrated that the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is moderated by employee role perceptions--the extent to which employees view specific types of OCB as in-role behavior (IRB) versus extra-role behavior (ERB). In addition, we predicted and demonstrated that the form of these interactions differs on the basis of the type of OCB. For helping (aimed at the supervisor or the organization), results show a substitute effect in which viewing helping as IRB buffers the negative effect of low-quality LMX on helping. In contrast, for voice (aimed at the supervisor or the organization), results demonstrate an enhancer effect in which viewing voice as IRB amplifies the positive effect of high-quality LMX on voice. We discuss theoretical and practical implications with an emphasis on how conceptual differences in types of OCB influence the interactive effects of role perceptions on LMX-OCB relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural and psychological empowerment climates, performance, and the moderating role of shared felt accountability: A managerial perspective.

The authors proposed and tested a model in which data were collected from managers (n = 539) at 116 corporate-owned quick service restaurants to assess the structural and psychological empowerment process as moderated by shared-felt accountability on indices of performance from a managerial perspective. The authors found that empowering leadership climate positively relates to psychological empowerment climate. In turn, psychological empowerment climate relates to performance only under conditions of high-felt accountability; it does not relate to performance under conditions of low-felt accountability. Overall, the present results indicate that the quick-service restaurant managers, who feel more empowered, operate restaurants that perform better than managers who feel less empowered, but only when those empowered managers also feel a high sense of accountability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leader--member exchange, differentiation, and psychological contract fulfillment: A multilevel examination.

Prior integrations of the leader-member exchange (LMX) and psychological contract literatures have not clarified how within-group LMX differentiation influences employees' attitudes and behaviors in the employment relationship. Therefore, using a sample of 278 members and managers of 31 intact work groups at 4 manufacturing plants, the authors examined how LMX operating at the within-group level (relative LMX, or RLMX) and the group level influenced perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment and employee-level outcomes. Controlling for individual-level perceptions of LMX quality, results indicated a positive relationship between RLMX and fulfillment, which was strengthened as group-level variability in LMX quality increased. Perceptions of fulfillment mediated the relationship between RLMX and performance and sportsmanship behaviors. The importance of conceptualizing LMX as simultaneously operating at multiple levels is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differentiated leader–member exchanges: The buffering role of justice climate.

The leader–member exchange (LMX) literature has established that leaders differentiate among their followers. Yet little is known about the effects of LMX differentiation (within-group variation in LMX quality). In this study, we contend that the effects of LMX differentiation on the employee outcomes of work attitudes, coworker relations, and employee withdrawal behaviors will be contingent upon the level of procedural and distributive justice climate. Data from 276 employees working in 25 stores of a retail chain in Turkey supported our hypotheses such that LMX differentiation was related to more negative work attitudes and coworker relations, and higher levels of withdrawal behaviors only when justice climate was low. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empowering employees: The moderating role of perceived organisational climate and justice.

Previous research suggests that empowering managerial practises have small and variable effects on employees' behaviours. The objective of this study is to assess whether organisational climate and justice perceptions moderate the relationship between supervisor empowering managerial practises (SEMPs) and employees' behavioural empowerment. Self-report data were gathered from a sample of 358 employees from three service-sector organisations in a cross-sectional study. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both perceptions of organisational climate and justice interact with SEMPs in the prediction of employees' behavioural empowerment. As expected, SEMPs were more positively related to behavioural empowerment when perceptions of organisational supportive climate and justice were higher. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information privacy in organizations: Empowering creative and extrarole performance.

This article examines the relationship of employee perceptions of information privacy in their work organizations and important psychological and behavioral outcomes. A model is presented in which information privacy predicts psychological empowerment, which in turn predicts discretionary behaviors on the job, including creative performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results from 2 studies (Study 1: single organization, N=310; Study 2: multiple organizations, N=303) confirm that information privacy entails judgments of information gathering control, information handling control, and legitimacy. Moreover, a model linking information privacy to empowerment and empowerment to creative performance and OCBs was supported. Findings are discussed in light of organizational attempts to control employees through the gathering and handling of their personal information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meta-Analytic review of leader–member exchange theory: Correlates and construct issues.

The leader–member exchange (LMX) literature is reviewed using meta-analysis. Relationships between LMX and its correlates are examined, as are issues related to the LMX construct, including measurement and leader–member agreement. Results suggest significant relationships between LMX and job performance, satisfaction with supervision, overall satisfaction, commitment, role conflict, role clarity, member competence, and turnover intentions. The relationship between LMX and actual turnover was not significant. Leader and member LMX perceptions were only moderately related. Partial support was found for measurement instrument and perspective (i.e., leader vs. member) as moderators of the relationships between LMX and its correlates. Meta-analysis showed that the LMX7 (7-item LMX) measure has the soundest psychometric properties of all instruments and that LMX is congruent with numerous empirical relationships associated with transformational leadership. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating contingencies: An examination of the impact of span of supervision and upward controllingness on leader–member exchange using traditional and multivariate within- and between-entities analysis.

Using a sample of 150 bank employees, span of supervision and subordinate use of influence tactics were examined as moderators of relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX) and subordinate performance and organizational commitment. Raw score analyses indicate that moderators are present. Span of supervision and upward controlling influence tactics moderate relationships between LMX and both performance and commitment. However, using multiple relationship analysis and multivariate within- and between-entities analysis to assess the level of analysis results in some discrepant findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Well-connected leaders: The impact of leaders' social network ties on LMX and members' work attitudes.

We examined the proposition that leaders' social network ties in the larger organization influence the quality of their leader–member exchange (LMX) with their employees, which, in turn, impacts these employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Using multilevel, multisource data from a field study of 184 bank employees nested within 42 branch managers, we found that leaders who had higher quality relationships with their bosses and who were more central in their peer networks were perceived by their subordinates as having greater status in the organization and, therefore, were able to form higher quality relationships with them. Further, the effects of the leaders' perceived status on LMX were stronger when subordinates were less central in their own peer network. Finally, LMX mediated the impact of leaders' perceived status in the organization on subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abusive supervision and subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior.

The relationship between subordinates' perceptions of abusive supervision and supervisors' evaluations of subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) was explored among a sample of 373 Air National Guard members and their military supervisors. As predicted, the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates' OCB was stronger among subordinates who defined OCB as extra-role behavior (compared with those defining OCB as in-role behavior), and this effect was fully mediated by the interactive effect of procedural justice and OCB role definitions. The study's implications for theory and research are discussed, its limitations are identified, and directions for future research are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To Empower or Not to Empower Your Sales Force? An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Leadership Empowerment Behavior on Customer Satisfaction and Performance.

This research focuses on the impact of leadership empowerment behavior (LEB) on customer service satisfaction and sales performance, as mediated by salespeople's self-efficacy and adaptability. Moreover, the authors propose an interactive relationship whereby LEB will be differentially effective as a function of employees' empowerment readiness. The authors' hypotheses are tested using survey data from a sample of 231 salespeople in the pharmaceutical field, along with external ratings of satisfaction from 864 customers and archival sales performance information. Results indicated that contrary to popular belief, employees with low levels of product/industry knowledge and low experience benefit the most from leadership behaviors that are empowering, whereas high-knowledge and experienced employees reap no clear benefit. The authors conclude with directions for future research and application. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating role of safety-specific trust on the relation between safety-specific leadership and safety citizenship behaviors.

The authors examined whether safety-specific trust moderates or mediates the relationship between safety-specific transformational leadership and subordinates' safety citizenship behavior. Data from 139 subordinate-supervisor dyads were collected from the United Kingdom construction industry and analyzed using hierarchical regression models. Results showed that safety-specific trust moderated rather than mediated the effects of safety-specific transformational leaders on subordinates' behavior. Specifically, in conditions of high and moderate safety-specific trust, leaders had a significant effect on subordinates' safety citizenship behavior. However, in conditions of low safety-specific trust, leaders did not significantly influence subordinates' safety citizenship behavior. The implications of these findings for general safety theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of fair treatment and rewards in perceptions of organizational support and leader-member exchange.

This study examined a model of the antecedents and consequences of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader-member exchange (LMX). It was predicted that organizational justice (procedural and distributive justice) and organizational practices that provide recognition to the employee (feelings of inclusion and recognition from upper management) would influence POS. For LMX, it was predicted that leader reward (distributive justice and contingent rewards) and punishment behavior would be important antecedents. Results based on a sample of 211 employee-supervisor dyads indicated that organizational justice, inclusion, and recognition were related to POS and contingent rewards were related to LMX. In terms of consequences, POS was related to employee commitment and organizational citizenship behavior, whereas LMX predicted performance ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ties that bind: The impact of leader-member exchange, transformational and transactional leadership, and distance on predicting follower performance.

The authors examined the linkages between leader-member exchange (LMX), transformational and transactional leadership, and physical distance in predicting performance of 317 followers over a 1-year period. Results from a partial least squares analysis revealed that LMX was related positively to transformational and contingent reward leadership and negatively to management-by-exception. LMX and active management-by-exception positively predicted follower performance, and physical distance moderated leadership-performance relationships. Transformational leadership produced significantly higher follower performance in close versus distant situations, whereas LMX produced high follower performance irrespective of physical distance between leaders and followers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)