Leader Humor and Employee Upward Voice: The Role of Employee Relationship Quality and Traditionality

2020 ◽  
pp. 154805182097087
Author(s):  
Ling Tan ◽  
Yongli Wang ◽  
Hailing Lu

Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on leader humor, the important issue of how and when leader humor affects employees’ interpersonal, proactive behaviors in the form of upward voice has largely been overlooked. Drawing on relational process model of humor and data from one multiwave, multisource field study and one experimental field study, we find that the positive effects of leader humor on upward voice behavior can be accounted for by both supervisor–subordinate nonwork ties (i.e., supervisor–subordinate guanxi) and supervisor–subordinate work ties (i.e., leader–member exchange). The indirect effects of both supervisor–subordinate guanxi and leader–member exchange on the relationship between leader humor and upward voice behavior are stronger when employees score low on traditionality. These results shed light on the role of leader humor in promoting the bottom–up flow of potentially critical information in organizations through high-quality relationships with followers and provide insights into who will benefit more from humor in leadership.

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-111
Author(s):  
Fong-Yi Lai ◽  
Szu-Chi Lu ◽  
Cheng-Chen Lin ◽  
Yu-Chin Lee

Abstract. The present study proposed that, unlike prior leader–member exchange (LMX) research which often implicitly assumed that each leader develops equal-quality relationships with their supervisors (leader’s LMX; LLX), every leader develops different relationships with their supervisors and, in turn, receive different amounts of resources. Moreover, these differentiated relationships with superiors will influence how leader–member relationship quality affects team members’ voice and creativity. We adopted a multi-temporal (three wave) and multi-source (leaders and employees) research design. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 227 bank employees working in 52 departments. Results of the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis showed that LLX moderates the relationship between LMX and team members’ voice behavior and creative performance. Strengths, limitations, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 1115-1123 ◽  
Author(s):  
KeXin Guan ◽  
ZhengXue Luo ◽  
JiaXi Peng ◽  
Zhen Wang ◽  
HaiTing Sun ◽  
...  

We examined the relationship among team networks, leader-member exchange (LMX), and team identification in the workplace. Social network theory, social exchange theory, and social identity theory served as references for our theoretical propositions and analyses. We collected data from a sample of 223 teams of military personnel, serving in the artillery in West China. We found that the team networks had a significant effect on team identification. Further, the variance and the mean for LMX in teams interacted in influencing team identification (β =-.893, p < .01). Our findings indicated that creating productive networks in teams would be useful to enhance team identification, the effect of which may be carried on through to building exchange relationships between leader and follower.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-135
Author(s):  
Chongrui Liu ◽  
Cong Wang ◽  
Yan Liu ◽  
Xuran Liu ◽  
Yuan Ni

Abstract. Although leader–member exchange (LMX) has been widely studied, knowledge about how followers influence the LMX process remains unknown. By integrating the broaden-and-build theory (BBT) with the emotion as social information (EASI) theory, we develop a follower-centric multilevel model to investigate how followers' positive emotions have an impact on LMX via the mediating role of leader identification and the moderating role of leaders' positive emotions. We conducted a survey with 319 Chinese employees from 67 teams. The results indicated that leader identification served as a mediating factor in the relationship between followers' positive emotions and LMX. The work unit leaders' positive emotions strengthened the relationship between leader identification and LMX and moderated the mediated relationship among followers' positive emotions, leader identification, and LMX. Altogether, our findings inform new knowledge in terms of how followers may influence the development of LMX. We also help to extend the BBT and the EASI theory to the leadership context.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakan Turgut ◽  
Ismail Tokmak ◽  
M. Fikret Ates

<p>It is known in the business world that employees’ display of emotional labor in their relations with customers contributes to the success of the organization. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find out how the emotional dilemmas that employees experience affect their perceptions on job satisfaction and turnover intention and whether leader-member exchange has a moderating role on these relationships. In this respect, we performed a survey on the 371 employees of a company in Turkey. We used the scale developed by Diefendorff et al. (2005) to test emotional labor; the scale developed by Scandura and Graen (1984) to test leader-member exchange; the scale developed by Chen et al. (2009) to test job satisfaction and the scale developed by Scott et al. (1999) to test turnover intention. The all scales were measured valid and reliable for this sample group. In the hierarchical regression analyses, done to test the hypotheses, all variables were included in the model. According to the findings, emotional labor has a significant and positive direct effect on turnover intention and it has a significant and negative direct effect on job satisfaction. All these results taken into consideration, it was confirmed that when emotional labor increases, turnover intention also increases, and job satisfaction decreases. Furthermore, the moderating role of leader-member exchange between the relationship of emotional labor and turnover intention wasn’t approved; however, its moderating role between the relationship of emotional labor and job satisfaction was approved. To sum up, it is estimated that performing emotional labor is inevitable for organizational success and it is essential to develop new methods in order to prevent the negativities resulting from emotional dilemmas.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanhua Ye ◽  
Ziwen Wang ◽  
Xiaowei Lu

Extant research has investigated the relationship between work engagement and various outcomes, such as job performance and organizational commitment, neglecting the effect of work engagement on social relationships at work. Drawing upon person-environment fit theory and LMX theory, the present study aims to examine the effect of (in)congruence between leader and follower work engagement on leader–member exchange (LMX) and the moderating effect of conscientiousness. About 273 employees and 72 leaders participated in this study and completed the measurements of work engagement, conscientiousness, and LMX at two time points. Using cross-level polynomial regressions, we found that, compared with incongruent work engagement, employees perceived high levels of LMX quality when their work engagement was aligned with that of their leaders. Regarding the congruence, the employees reported higher levels of LMX when congruence in work engagement was at higher rather than lower levels. Regarding the incongruence, when the employees engaged less in their work tasks than their leaders, they were more likely to experience lower LMX. Moreover, the negative relationship between incongruence in leader and follower work engagement and LMX was mitigated when followers were more conscientious. All our hypotheses were supported. Both theoretical and practical implications for work engagement as well as future directions are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
You-De Dai ◽  
Wen-Long Zhuang ◽  
Po-Kai Yang ◽  
Yi-Jun Wang ◽  
Tzung-Cheng Huan

Purpose Drawing on leader-member exchange theory and regulatory focus theory, the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of hotel employees’ regulatory foci on their voice behavior and the moderating role of leader-member exchange. Design/methodology/approach The questionnaire includes demographics, regulatory foci, leader-member exchange and voice behavior sections. The data was collected via a survey of 10 international tourist hotels in Taiwan and 479 valid questionnaires were completed. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were used to test the composite reliability, discriminant validity and convergent validity. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The outcome of this study indicates that both promotion focus and prevention focus can benefit employees’ voice behavior; however, prevention-focused employees have more positive voice behavior than promotion-focused employees. In addition, the leader-member exchange can moderate the relationship between regulatory foci and voice behavior. Originality/value This is an empirical study in the hotel field to examine the moderating effects of leader-member exchange on the relationships between regulatory foci and voice behavior. This research is contributed toward human resource management literature in the hospitality and tourism domain. Practices for managers and suggestions for future research are discussed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document