Diversity as an aspect of effective leadership: integrating and moving forward

How and when workplace ostracism influences employee deviant behavior: A self-determination theory perspective

Drawing on self-determination theory, this study examines the relationship between workplace ostracism and deviant behavior by focusing on the mediating role of basic psychological needs and the moderating role of perceived inclusive climate. Findings based on the analysis of 247 valid survey samples suggest that (1) workplace ostracism has a significant positive impact on employees’ deviant behavior; (2) basic psychological needs mediate the relationship between workplace ostracism and employees’ deviant behavior; and (3) employees’ perceived inclusive climate weakens the negative effect of workplace ostracism on basic psychological needs. This study develops new perspectives for workplace ostracism research, extends the factors that influence employees’ deviant behavior, and expands the boundary conditions of organizational difference in self-determination theory. Moreover, these empirical results provide important theoretical guidance to decrease employees’ deviant behavior in organizations.

Relationship of Leadership and Envy: How to Resolve Workplace Envy with Leadership-A Bibliometric Review Study

In recent years, workplace envy has gradually become a hot research topic for organizational behavior. Scholars have explored the antecedents and consequences of envy following the traditional research paradigm. The latest leadership theory also provides new ideas for its development. Although the traditional methods continue to optimize the research on the relationship between leadership and envy, they still do not fully reflect the binary logical relationship between the two and cannot offer sufficient explanatory power for the psychological activities and behaviors of employees and supervisors. In this paper, two pieces of bibliometric software, CiteSpace (American, Drexel University) and Histcite (American, Clarivate Analytics), were used in order to analyze the previous literature in regard to providing a theoretical basis, the main content, and the stages of development. Based on the integration, we propose a dual-track theoretical model of leadership and envy as the prediction framework for future research. The research has returned to the intelligent attribute of leadership and believes that effective leadership can adjust the existence of various types of envy and transform it into the actual productivity of the workplace.

Leadership and management culture within dental practice: a case study

PURPOSE

This case study aims to explore how leadership and management applies to a hypothetical scenario, focussing on a dental practice. As a teaching exercise, it may enable dentists and allied workers to reflect on the leadership and management styles used within their workplaces, and on their own abilities.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The hypothetical scenario considers a dental practice, its organisational structure, and leadership and management practices. The contemporary leadership and management theories of transformational leadership and contingency management are next discussed. These are then compared with the practices used in the dental practice. The case study concludes with recommendations.

FINDINGS

The hypothetical scenario reveals that bureaucratic and transactional leadership and management culture exists within the dental practice, which may be attributable to many factors. The case study suggests that no single manner of leadership and management is completely correct or greater than another. There may be a need for bureaucratic, transactional, transformational, contingency and other approaches, and only if they shall be used in the best interests of the workforce and workplace.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Many dental practice workers may be oblivious to their own leadership and management techniques, and thus, the resultant impact on teammates. Negative approaches may contribute towards poor morale and a high turnover of staff. To become more skilful at applying certain approaches to given situations, dentists and allied workers may well need to pursue continuing professional development training in leadership and management.

Exploring organisational diversity climate with associated antecedents and employee outcomes

Orientation: Organisations are consistently changing and diversifying; therefore, researchers and practitioners are viewing diversity as an essential part of organisational behaviour literature and practice.Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate a simple mediation model, with the diversity climate as the proposed mediator, transformational leadership as the model antecedent and organisational commitment as the outcome.Motivation for the study: The South African diversity climate research is limited, including mediation investigations. Increased organisational diversification requires constant and relevant information with regard to diversity management.Research approach/design and method: A quantitative approach using a cross-sectional design collected 230 responses from a convenience sample. Transformational leadership was considered through six key behaviours associated with transformational leadership. Organisational commitment was considered as per the Psycones questionnaire and the organisational diversity climate was determined using a single-dimension diversity climate instrument. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and a simple mediation model.Main findings: Correlation results revealed that both transformational leadership and a diversity climate demonstrated practical effects with organisational commitment. Results from a standardised regression coefficient confirmed that transformational leadership predicts the diversity climate significantly. Both transformational leadership and diversity climate predicted commitment. The simple mediation model revealed that the diversity climate can be considered a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment.Practical/managerial implications: Organisations would benefit from leadership assessments for current and future employees, especially organisations that would like to prioritise a constructive diversity climate and employee commitment.Contribution/value-add: Contributions are made towards limited diversity climate investigations by providing empirical evidence of the mediating role of a diversity climate.

Development and validation of servant leadership scale in Spanish higher education

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First is the validation of a scale to measure the servant leadership of the university leaders. Second is to analyze how servant leadership affects the career satisfaction and life satisfaction of the academics.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a survey of 148 academics at universities located in Spain collected in May 2018, a couple of models were conducted using structural equation model techniques: a confirmatory factor analysis of second order in order to assess the leadership scale and a mediation model to assess how servant leadership impacts on the life satisfaction through career satisfaction.

Findings

Results reveal that leadership is a multi-dimensional construct having dimensions namely: behaving ethically, development, emotional healing, empowerment, pioneering, relationship building and wisdom. The total effect of servant leadership on life satisfaction is null due to a competitive mediation of career satisfaction.

Originality/value

Research on servant leadership has primarily focused on business organizations through extensive search in peer-reviewed databases the authors could not find a scale to measure servant leadership behavior in higher education. Additionally, the study assesses the role of career satisfaction as mediator between servant leadership and life satisfaction. Existing research has called for further research into both career and life satisfaction. Life satisfaction research has been criticized on the grounds that it has mainly overlooked the work/organizational settings. Moreover, the authors could only find little research into life satisfaction in higher education, that too in context of students.

HPWS and climate for inclusion: a moral legitimacy lens

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to apply insights from the moral legitimacy theory to understand how climate for inclusion (CFI) is cultivated at the individual and collective levels, thereby highlighting the influence of employee perceptions of inclusion-oriented high-performance work systems (HPWS) on CFI.

Design/methodology/approach

A multi-level conceptual framework is introduced to explain how employee perceptions develop about the moral legitimacy of inclusion-oriented HPWS and the subsequent influence on CFI.

Findings

CFI is theorized to manifest when employees perceive inclusion-oriented HPWS as morally legitimate according to four unit-level features. Employees with a strong moral identity will be particularly attuned to the moral legitimacy of each of the unit-level HPWS features, thereby strengthening the perceived HPWS and CFI relationship at the individual level. The convergence of individual-level perceptions of CFI to the collective level will be strongest when climate variability is low for majority and minority groups.

Practical implications

Organizations seeking to develop CFI should consider the role of HPWS and the perceived moral legitimacy of such systems. This consideration may involve policy amendments to include a broadened scope of HPWS.

Originality/value

This paper explores how employee perceptions of the moral legitimacy of HPWS can help or hinder CFI, thereby offering a novel framework for future inclusion and human resource management research.

The effectiveness of transformational leadership on empowerment

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of gender on the effectiveness of transformational leadership. Drawing on role congruity theory, it elucidates the moderating effects of leader gender, subordinate gender, and leader-subordinate gender dyad on the relationship between transformational leadership and psychological empowerment.

Design/methodology/approach

Employees of companies in Korea responded to a paper-pencil survey, rating their psychological empowerment and leadership behaviors of their direct leader on a five-point Likert-type scale. The analysis includes 339 responses.

Findings

The results indicate that a leader’s gender has no significant moderating effect on psychological empowerment, but the gender of the subordinate has a significant moderating effect, with male subordinates more strongly influenced by transformational leadership than female subordinates. Notably, the findings show that the effectiveness of transformational leadership is contingent on the leader-subordinate gender dyad. Specifically, transformational leadership has as significant an effect on female leader-male subordinate dyads as on male leader-male subordinate dyads.

Research limitations/implications

This study contributes to leadership and gender studies in the management field by investigating the effect of gender roles on the effectiveness of transformational leadership. Future research should extend this study and explore whether these findings are generalizable.

Practical implications

The remarkable finding of the effect of female leadership on employee empowerment suggests organizations should use more female leaders.

Originality/value

This is the first empirical study to shed light on gender issues in relation to transformational leadership in Korea.