Exploring the relationship between super-leadership, self-leadership, and exercise commitment in university Taekwondo teams

Introduction

Promoting super-leadership is crucial for the sustainable growth of college sport teams, especially as teams are experiencing a noticeable shift towards a more horizontal dynamic, where athletes themselves are emerging as leaders. However, there is a lack of research on the effectiveness of super-leadership and its possible outcomes in the context of collegiate Taekwondo teams.

Methods

This study aims to investigate the impact of super-leadership on athletes' self-leadership and exercise commitment and examine the mediating role of self-leadership in this relationship among collegiate Taekwondo athletes in South Korea. A total of 147 survey data were analyzed by structural equation modeling.

Results

The findings revealed that super-leadership was found to have a positive impact on both athletes' self-leadership (β = 0.71, p < 0.001) and exercise commitment (β = 0.30, p < 0.05). Additionally, the study reveals athletes' self-leadership significantly impacts exercise commitment (β = 0.34, p < 0.05). Our findings also demonstrate that self-leadership was identified as a partial mediator in the relationship between super-leadership and exercise commitment (∆χ2 = 4.46, p > 0.05).

Discussion

Theoretical and practical implications were discussed based on the current study's findings.

Captain or deckhand? The impact of self-leadership on employees' work role performance under remote work

Relying on self-determination theory, this study investigates the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between self-leadership and work role performance (task proficiency, task adaptivity, and task proactivity) in remote work settings. It also explores whether and how supervisor close monitoring moderates the indirect impact of self-leadership on work role performance. Hypotheses were tested using a two-study design including white-collar employees from a broad range of jobs and companies (Study 1) and employee-supervisor dyads working in small and medium-sized firms (Study 2) in Turkey. In Study 1, results showed that self-leadership had a positive indirect effect on employees' work role performance through psychological empowerment. In Study 2, the cross-lagged two-wave design provided support for this indirect effect while demonstrating partial support for the moderating role of supervisor close monitoring. The current study contributes to research on self-leadership and work role performance by providing a detailed understanding of the motivational process through which self-leadership leads to increased work role performance. It also offers practical insights for enhancing self-leaders' work role performance, particularly within the remote work context.

Empowering self-direction in return to work of employees with low and high levels of education: A qualitative comparative study

BACKGROUND: Dutch legislation encourages active participation of employees in their return-to-work (RTW) process. Empowering leadership may support employees’ self-direction in this process (i.e. by allowing and enabling their involvement in decision-making). OBJECTIVE: Building upon a previous study, we aimed to study (1) how representatives of a university, i.e. an employer for employees with high levels of education (EH), manage RTW, (2) the similarities and differences between the RTW management of employers (or representatives thereof) of employees with low (EL) and high levels of education, and (3) the degree to which the employers’ roles resemble empowering leadership. METHODS: Qualitative methodology was applied. A thematic analysis of interview transcripts (rq1) was followed by a comparison of themes (rq2) and pattern matching (rq3). RESULTS: (1) EH tend to engage in dialogue and accommodate their employees as much as possible. (2) EL and EH showed several similarities, such as aiming to meet legal requirements on RTW management. Compared to EL, EH tend to focus more on facilitating employees. (3) Empowering leadership seems to be more common among EH. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to employees with low levels of education, those with high levels of education may be granted more opportunity to self-direct their RTW. The study results provide starting points for employers for employees with both low and high levels of education who aim to enable employees’ self-direction in RTW, and help them to develop empowering leadership styles.

Daily Job Crafting and Adaptive Performance During Organizational Change: The Moderating Role of Managers’ Influence Tactics

Is job crafting relevant for adaptive performance in the absence of managers’ effective influence tactics and the presence of ineffective tactics? Based on job demands-resources and conservation of resources theories, we examined whether employee daily job crafting behaviors (i.e., resources seeking, challenges seeking, demands reducing) interact with overall managers’ influence tactics during times of organizational change in explaining change outcomes. Twenty-nine hotel employees completed a questionnaire to evaluate their managers’ influence tactics, and then a diary for five consecutive workdays to assess daily job crafting behaviors and daily adaptive performance during a large-scale change. Multilevel analyses revealed that daily seeking resources related positively to adaptive performance particularly when specific managers’ influence tactics were low. These findings imply that employees compensate for the absence of managers’ influence tactics by seeking resources in order to facilitate their own adaptation to organizational changes.

The power of moving fast: responsible leadership, psychological empowerment and workforce agility in energy sector firms

The energy sector is undergoing significant transformation induced by environmental changes and increasing pressure from stakeholder groups. In order to quickly seize opportunities in the unpredictable contemporary business environment, leaders increasingly face the challenge of ensuring an appropriate level of organisational agility, achieved through workforce agility. In striving to achieve workforce agility, responsible leaders should consider the intrinsic motivation oriented towards work, how it affects a team's performance, and the level of its involvement. Based on studies that combine leadership, empowerment, and agility, we analyse whether and how responsible leadership and psychological empowerment support workforce agility in the energy sector firms. Using structural equation modelling, we analyse data gathered from a group of 187 managers and experts. The results support a hypothesised relationship between leadership focused on responsible management, psychological empowerment, and workforce agility. The survey reveals that a combination of responsible leadership and psychological empowerment affects workforce agility.

Empowerment leadership as a predictor of expatriates job performance and creative work involvement

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between empowering leadership and organizational commitment and its effect on job performance and creative work involvement within the expatriate society of the UAE.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper suggests a theoretical model derived from survey responses gathered from expatriates used in multinational organizations located in Dubai city in the UAE.

Findings

The results show that organizational commitment partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and job performance. Furthermore, the results show that organizational commitment partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and creative work involvement.

Originality/value

This research adds to the existing body of knowledge on international business by investigating the effects that organizational commitment and empowering leadership have on creative work involvement and job performance of expatriates.

Seizing the benefits of age diversity: could empowering leadership be the answer?

Purpose

Acknowledging that only examining the main effects of diversity may be limiting, the authors explore integrating van Knippenberg et al.'s (2004) categorization–elaboration model (CEM) of workgroup diversity as a linchpin in the relationship between empowering leadership and performance in age-diverse work groups. While prior research has focused almost exclusively on the impact of transformational leadership in diverse contexts, few studies have found the positive effects of transformational leadership to be diminished in certain age-diverse contexts. Consequently, the authors investigate whether empowering leadership may be a better approach in this context due to its emphasis on accommodating and participative behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using survey data gathered from work group members across a wide array of industries (N = 214), the authors test for the moderating effects of empowering leadership on the relationship between age diversity and work group performance and its indirect relationship via information elaboration (while controlling for transformational leadership).

Findings

Empowering leadership positively moderated the direct relationship between age diversity and work group performance and the indirect relationship via information elaboration, whereas transformational leadership had the opposite effect. “Coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” drove the positive effects of empowering leadership, and “personal recognition” and “intellectual stimulation” predicted the negative effects of transformational leadership.

Practical implications

This research offers insights into how managers can lead age-diverse work groups more effectively (i.e. by utilizing an empowering as opposed to a transformational leadership approach, with a particular emphasis on “coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” behaviors).

Originality/value

The study identifies an “alternative” moderating contingency to the age diversity–performance relationship (empowering leadership).

Daily Empowering Leadership and Job Crafting: Examining Moderators

In this study, we built and tested a contingency model linking leader daily empowering behaviors with employee daily job crafting. Drawing on the contingency leadership literature and the model of proactive motivation, we theorized employee daily work meaning and vigor as moderators of the above relationships. Daily data were collected from 103 Chinese employees for five consecutive days. Our findings suggest that leader day_T (a certain day) empowering behaviors are more strongly related to employee day_T+1 (next day after the certain day) job crafting when employee day_T work meaning is low and employee day_T+1 vigor is high. Our findings suggest that only under certain conditions can empowering leadership promote employee job crafting on a daily basis.

Causes of coercive management behaviour, dimensions and occupations

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the specific causes of individual dimensions of coercive management behaviour (CMB) and identify the relationship between individual causes of CMB and the deployment of individual dimension of CMB as well as propose the matching of anti-CMB solutions to occupational types.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a sample of 371 respondents randomly selected from 10 of 100 accredited universities in Ghana. The data were gathered using an instrument that was measured on five-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree = 1” to “strongly agree = 5”. Then the least squares regression analysis was also used in testing the hypothesis.

Findings

This study identified the potent effect of causality in determining the CMB in organisations. Again, a regression of the individual causes on individual dimensions of CMB clearly shows that there is a strong relationship between specific causes and individual dimensions of CMB. The results show clearly that each CMB cause has a different effect and unequal level of significance in relation to specific dimensions.

Research limitations/implications

Though this research attempted to find the relationship between causes of CMB and the CMB dimensions deployed in universities, the identified causes are only the causes elucidated through a new scale developed Doe (2018). Other possible causes of CMB were not factored into this research’s objectives. It is possible therefore that further research can link some other causes not mentioned in this work to dimensions of CMB which are intimidation, threat to personal standing, threat to professional standing, social isolation and work-related harassment. It is therefore suggested that more research will be necessary to ascertain which dimensions produce which effects and in what proportion in victims of CMB. Second, as a result of the fact that this is a novel area, formulating a hypothesis for the mediation of occupational types in the relationship between causes and dimensions is difficult. Hence, although the findings present a theory of a moderation of occupational characteristics on the relationship between causes of CMB and specific dimensions of CMB in the university, this theory was not tested. However, in spite of this, the researchers propose this perspective as the paper’s contribution to the body of the literature as a novel research interest worth looking into. It is thus relevant and significant to ignite research interest in this direction. Finally, data used in the study was conjoint thereby leaving no room for a comparative analysis of public versus private universities. This limitation should therefore provide a base for further research.

Practical implications

The research findings have practical policy implications. This includes providing the basis for designing policies that suit the needs of employees in any organisation. This therefore prevents a one-size-fits-all approach which may not be effective in all cases. Second, corporate governance is enhanced through the identification and resolving of context-specific factors that provide the seedbed for institutionalised bullying. Theoretically, the research findings also have implications. The findings enhance the cause and effect discussion of the phenomenon in the sense that being able to identify what causes more harm to the well-being of employees in a given organisation provides the vital link to crafting the right context-specific antidote to the phenomenon. Again, the relationship between causes of CMB and dimensions of CMB has been established. Having established this relationship, it is recommended that research focus should be directed at investigating differences in organisational cultures of various occupations and how they contribute towards providing the ideal environment for the causative factors in the CMB phenomenon to thrive. The establishment of the relationship between occupation types and causes and/or dimensions of CMB will unearth the critical nexus that needs to be found between type of occupations and the reverse relationship they have with causes through the lens of the dimensions deployed in the organisation. This will further enhance the understanding of the CMB phenomenon.

Originality/value

This study contributes significantly to research by bringing to attention of researchers and practitioners the linkage between causes and dimensions of CMB and thus enables organisations to tailor solutions to this phenomenon to the most pertinent causes of the dimensions experienced by victims.

Setting the Scene: Partners’ Leadership Behavior and Employees’ Perceptions of Work Performance in Professional Service Firms

The effect of leadership behavior on work performance is highly context sensitive. We address this notion by investigating leadership behavior in one important but understudied organizational context—namely, professional service firms (PSFs). We examine how partners’ leadership behavior in a PSF relates to employee self-leadership, creative climate, and work performance (N = 442). The results show that partners’ consideration leadership behavior is positively related to employees’ perceived work performance. Moreover, partners’ consideration and intellectual stimulation leadership behavior are especially important drivers of self-leadership and creative climate in a PSF, which in turn are positively related to employees’ work performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Does Differentiated Leadership Threaten Who I Am? Introducing a Self-Verification Perspective to Explain the Curvilinear Effect of Differentiated Empowering Leadership

Based on the self-verification theory, this research proposed a multi-level model for exploring whether, how, and when differentiated leadership had curvilinear effects on relationship conflict within a team and further on team members’ counterproductive work behaviors toward individuals (CWBI). Drawing on a sample of 297 team members nested in 78 teams, we found that differentiated empowering leadership had no direct curvilinear effects on relationship conflict. However, the results showed that the team competence variance could moderate the curvilinear relationship between differentiated empowering leadership and relationship conflict. Specifically, only in teams with high competence variance among members, differentiated empowering leadership had a U-shaped effect on relationship conflict. Moreover, differentiated empowering leadership interacted with team competence variance had a downstream effect on team members’ CWBI through relationship conflict. We ended up by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

One Best Way? Leader Behavior and Different Aspects of Team Performance

Abstract. In two experiments, we tested differential effects of transformational, empowering, and task-oriented leader behavior on various aspects of team performance (quantity, quality, independence, subjective group performance) using three different tasks. In Experiment 1, 60 three-person teams completed a rank-order task and in Experiment 2, 54 three-person teams completed a construction and an information-search task. In both experiments, a videotaped team leader displayed transformational, empowering, or task-oriented leadership. Results suggested that leadership effectiveness may be a function of group outcome. Only for the tasks of Experiment 2 did transformational leadership result in superior outcomes, specifically regarding productivity and originality. Empowering leadership, in turn, yielded superior outcomes in terms of leader-independent thinking, while task-oriented leadership resulted in the highest subjective group performance ratings – except for the ranking task in which satisfaction ratings were highest for transformational leadership. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

PILAR: A Model of Collaboration to Encapsulate Social Psychology

This article presents an iterative examination of a grounded theory of collaboration in conjunction with social psychology literature. The resulting PILAR (Prospects, Involved, Liked, Agency, Respect) model of collaboration encapsulates over 30 social and group psychology (SGP) theories, including social identity theory, social network analysis, and psychological safety. Selected works of the early 20th-century scholars Lewin, Moreno, Simmel, and Foucault resonate with the PILAR model. We considered that, in constructing a generalized model of collaboration made possible by the availability of modern SGP theory, PILAR may represent advancement toward accomplishing these early scholars’ original intent. To validate PILAR, we proposed an empirical investigation for its consistency with organizational psychology, positive psychology, and appreciative inquiry, and for testing whether learning PILAR may improve collaboration skills for individuals lacking empathy.

Workplace ostracism, self-regulation, and job performance: Moderating role of intrinsic work motivation

Drawing from a self-regulation perspective, we examine how intrinsic work motivation changes the relation between workplace ostracism and employee job performance via self-leadership. We test a moderated mediated model with data collected from 101 employees at two points in time. Results provide support for the hypothesis that ostracized employees who are more intrinsically motivated use self-leadership strategies to a greater degree to improve their job performance than their counterparts who are not intrinsically motivated. The findings contribute to research regarding boundary conditions of ostracism theory and have important practical implications.

Transformative HR practices and employee task performance in high-tech firms

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of perceived transformative human resource (HR) practices and employee task performance. Drawing on evidence-based approach, the transformative HR practices intend to transform employees’ behavior to cope with organizational change. This study intends to answer how does the perceived transformative HR practices influence employees’ behavioral capability to enhance their task performance. This investigation proposes that the perceived transformative HR practices positively affect employees task performance, however, employee adaptivity mediates the relationship between them.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a random sample of 224 employees, from a large high-tech company in China, to test the hypotheses. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine the perceived transformative HR practices in the context of a high-tech firm. The authors performed multiple linear regression analysis to examine the proposed model.

Findings

The results of this study indicate that the perceived transformative HR practices positively influence employee adaptivity and task performance. Furthermore, employee adaptivity mediates the relationship between the perceived transformative HR practices and employee task performance. Therefore, employee adaptivity illuminates and explains the underlying mechanism of how the perceived transformative HR practices lead to employee task performance.

Research limitations/implications

Data collected from single firm may limit the generalizability of the findings and cross-sectional research design may raise the concern of common method bias. Future studies should test and validate the operationalization of the perceived transformative HR practices in different research contexts and with larger sample size. Organizations should design and implement transformative HR practices to cope with change. Furthermore, organizational managers should encourage and facilitate employee adaptivity to achieve better performance.

Originality/value

This study contributes to change management and the HR literature by identifying and operationalizing the perceived transformative HR practices as a predictor of employee adaptivity and task performance. Through the underlying mechanism of employee adaptivity between the perceived transformative HR practices and employee task performance, this study provides a new perspective to look at the HR-performance relationship in the change process.

Integrating the content and process of capability development: Lessons from theoretical and methodological developments

The literature on capability development has focussed on either the content or process of capability development. Such a partial explanation of the capability development phenomenon has created some flaws in the literature. This paper argues that integrating the content and process of capability development is the way ahead in theorising in this field. Analysis of the methodological development in parallel to theory development reveals the critical role of microprocesses in such integration. To develop an integrative view of capability development we propose a conceptualisation of capability development processes through internal and external strategic fit and emphasise the role of knowledge and innovation processes. We also argue that a critical realism approach is of high relevance to researching such an integrative view.

Organizational justice and work engagement: the mediating effect of self-leadership

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of organizational justice on work engagement and the mediating effect of employees’ self-leadership on this relationship within the Korean organizational context.

Design/methodology/approach

– Cross-sectional, self-report data on organizational justice, work engagement, and self-leadership were obtained from 237 employees in Korea. Structural equation modeling was mainly used for data analyses.

Findings

– The results revealed the direct significant effect of organizational justice on both self-leadership and work engagement. Also, self-leadership was found to have a significant effect on work engagement as well as a partial mediating effect on the relationship between organizational justice and employees’ work engagement.

Research limitations/implications

– The social relations and personal behavioral components were conjointly analyzed to measure organizational justice. Harman’s single factor test and unmeasured latent variable tests were performed to minimize the chance of the common method variance (CMV) issue, additional suggestion was provided to prevent CMV issue for future research.

Practical implications

– These results could be used for designing an organizational system and structure based on the interactive relations between social structure and behaviors to improve organizational performance.

Originality/value

– The research, which has conceptualized the interactions between social relations and individual behaviors to measure the organizational justice level, is rare.

Developing organizational creativity and innovation

Purpose

– The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the impact of self leadership on employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation moderated by the creativity climate of the organization.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study as a unique approach has explored the dimension of self-leadership in connection with employee creativity,creativity climate and workplace innovation preparedness.

Findings

– The results of structural equation modelling analysis based on the sample responses obtained from the research,design and development units of a select number of organizations across industries in the Indian context revealed the significant relationships among self-leadership,employee creativity,creativity climate and workplace innovative orientation. Further,the moderating effect of creativity climate was conducted using post hoc on employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation.

Research limitations/implications

– The major limitation of the study lies in relatively small sample size compared to large population group,inference of causality on cross-sectional data and absence of any qualitative analysis through the interaction with sample respondents.

Originality/value

– Although the findings from this study are limited to the scope of a small number of surveyed organizations compared to the large population,it brings out interesting insights in Indian context for future researches in this direction,especially for exploring the linkages among self-leadership,creativity and innovation.

Reflexive work and the duality of self-leadership

The concept of self-leadership is known and accepted, but still under-researched. By considering the reflexive work involved in the process of self-leadership, we seek to understand what factors are relevant for managers to be effective in a sustainable and productive way. We ask how managers engage in self-leadership. Empirically, we find that self-leadership is a process that can be translated into the capability of handling and sustaining four dualities: challenge and routine; self and others; nonwork and work; mind and body.

Leader’s intention to support followers’ self-worth

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of the followers’ competence, will to achieve, and self-determination on a leader’s intention to support a followers’ sense of self-worth.

Design/methodology/approach

– Using an experimental scenario study design with a sample of 316 managers, a mediated three-way moderation model was investigated that tested the extent to which a new subordinate’s competence, self-determination, and will to achieve would influence the manager’s positive expectations of them and their willingness to support this subordinate’s sense of self-worth.

Findings

– The results showed that a subordinate’s competence plays a key role and that a subordinate’s will to achieve and self-determination played an additional role that was mediated by positive expectations of the leader.

Practical implications

– The key findings emphasize that leaders can benefit from understanding how dyadic relationships form and are influenced by the earliest phases of the development of such relationships.

Originality/value

– By taking the perspective of the leader, the paper provides empirical evidence of key determinants of the leader-follower relationship.

Linking Empowering Leadership to Job Satisfaction, Work Effort, and Creativity

This article reports the results from two studies ( N = 233 and 161) on the role of self-leadership and psychological empowerment in linking empowering leadership to subordinates’ job satisfaction, work effort, and creativity. In addition, the studies investigated self-leadership as a mediator between empowering leadership and psychological empowerment. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that empowering leadership positively affects psychological empowerment both directly and indirectly, through self-leadership. Psychological empowerment influences both job satisfaction and work effort but not creativity, whereas self-leadership influences work effort and creativity but not job satisfaction. The article discusses the implications of these findings.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Self-Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine the cross-cultural validity of self-leadership by confirming a second-order factor structure and testing for measurement invariance in the operationalization of the self-leadership construct across four distinct national cultures: the United States, China, Germany, and Portugal. Results provide evidence in support of the cross-cultural validity of the hierarchical factor structure of self-leadership and in support of partial metric measurement invariance for the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire (RSLQ). Taken together, these findings suggest that future researchers examining substantive self-leadership hypotheses within and across non-U.S. cultures may proceed with confidence.

Leadership style and team processes as predictors of organisational learning

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the independent and interactive leadership style and team processes on organisational learning in an Indian context.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used is survey based. Primary data were collected from 36 Indian manufacturing sector executives and in total there were three teams (n=11, n=13 and n=12).

Findings

It was found that overall leadership style and transactional leadership had significant positive impact on organisational learning. Furthermore, team processes like cohesion and support and confrontation and problem solving were also found to be important predictors of organisational learning. The interactive effect of independent variables on dependent variable was also positive and significant.

Research limitations/implications

Discussions are performed and conclusions are drawn in the light of existing literature. The study bears implications for researchers to take on similar research in other contexts.

Practical implications

The study bears significant implications for executives working in manufacturing organisations. It is suggested that transactional leadership style should be employed to contribute towards organisational learning in such firms. Moreover, the use of team processes will also help in enhancing learning at the team and organisational levels.

Originality/value

This paper identifies two significant criterion variables to predict organisational learning. It is a pioneering effort to use team processes and leadership style together as predictors of organisational learning in Indian context.

Followership's experiences of organisational leadership: A systems psychodynamic perspective

Orientation: Followers’ experiences of leadership in their organisations were qualitatively explored and described from a systems psychodynamic perspective. The findings revealed a very negative view on how leadership treats followership, and that leadership is seen as inconsistent.Research purpose: The purpose of the research was to describe followership’s experiences of organisational leadership from a systems psychodynamic perspective.Motivation for the study: Organisational leadership is under tremendous pressure to perform and often under attack, especially if they do not appear to be caring and supportive. The research was planned to better understand the unconscious nature of this phenomenon.Research design, approach and method: Qualitative, descriptive research was used. Data was collected through psychodynamic Listening Posts and analysed using discourse analysis. Working hypotheses were formulated per theme and integrated into the research hypothesis.Main findings: Six themes manifested, namely a negative leadership view; idealisation of the past and blaming the present; obsession with race and gender; constantly changing identity; unfinished business and the future; and cope and hope.Practical/managerial implications: Leadership seem to focus more on business than followership issues which leads to followers feeling disregarded and de-authorised. As a result followers withhold authorisation from leadership which may be instrumental in leaderships’ difficulties to manage change and transformation effectively. Leadership development needs to incorporate the self-authorisation of leaders as well as the invitation of authorisation by leaders.Contribution/value-add: The data would be useful to leadership towards understanding, repairing and optimising their relationships and organisational impact through people.

The Relation Between Self-Leadership and Transformational Leadership

This study aims to integrate self-leadership into a more comprehensive leadership model. Therefore, it examines the relationship between self-leadership, transformational leadership, and work motivation (i.e., self-efficacy and instrumentality) relative to job performance and affective commitment. In addition, the influence of the work environment is of interest for a more comprehensive leadership model. Thus, the moderating role of virtuality was examined. Three competing models of self-leadership, which are theoretically plausible, are compared in this study: self-leadership acting (a) as a process factor mediating the relation between transformational leadership and employee motivation; (b) as an input factor, simultaneously with transformational leadership; and (c) as a process factor mediating the relation between work motivation and job performance/affective commitment. Results from structural equation modeling indicate that self-leadership is a process factor that mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee motivation. Results further suggest that self-leadership has a higher influence on motivation in virtual work structures compared with colocated work structures. Limitations, implications for management, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Information and Informality: Leaders as Knowledge Brokers in a High-Tech Firm

The article presents an empirical study of informal leadership in an international high-tech company. The empirical work consisted of qualitative observation and shadowing of managers in the company, and a total of 14 interviews. The transcribed fieldnotes and audio recordings of observations and interviews were analyzed thematically, resulting in three central themes: informality, information based authority, and information brokering. The general informal character of interactions at work included a network based information dissemination. In these networks, persons were percieved as informal leaders on the basis of their possession of reliable knowledge in technical as well as organizational domains. The informal leaders engaged in interpretation and brokering of information and knowledge, as well as in mediating strategic values and priorities on both formal and informal arenas. Informal leaders were thus seen to function on the level of the organization as a whole, and in cooperation with formal leaders. Drawing on existing theory of leadership in creative and professional contexts, this cooperation can be specified to concern task structuring. The informal leaders in our study contributed to task structuring through sensemaking activities, while formal leaders focused on aspects such as clarifying output expectations, providing feedback, project structure, and diversity.

Managerial Use of Power Bases in a Model of Managerial Empowerment Practices and Employee Psychological Empowerment

This paper explores the potentially central role that managers play in a model of empowerment. Issues of organizational goal accomplishment and employee trust often plague application of empowerment practices, and managers likely play a vital role in the successful implementation of empowerment. In this study, managerial use of power bases (reward, expert, referent, legitimate, coercive) was proposed to impact the relationship between managerial empowerment practices and employee psychological empowerment. We found a positive relationship between empowerment practices and psychological empowerment. Managerial use of power bases (as perceived by subordinates) was related to empowerment practices and psychological empowerment. Finally, managerial use of power bases fully mediated the relationship between managerial empowerment practices and employee psychological empowerment. We call for further research into the managerial use of power bases in developing a more complete model of empowerment.

Empowerment, Predisposition to Resist Change, and Support for Organizational Change

This article investigates the extent to which empowerment and dispositional characteristics contribute to behavioral support for organizational change.The study is the first to use a comprehensive intrapersonal variable—psychological empowerment— to represent the interaction between an individual and his or her work environment. Furthermore, by examining the influence of predisposition to resist change, the study contributes to the understanding that change content, change process, change context, and individual differences all contribute differentially to organizational change. Results from data collected from part-time MBA students as well as employees of a nonprofit organization confirmed two hypothesized predictions.

The Emergence of Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce

This study examines the emergence of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce from new niche formation, creative destruction, and contingency perspectives. Based on multiretail-sector data, this study supports the contingency perspective. The findings suggest that in digitally related sectors, B2C e-commerce has emerged through a creative destruction process whereby B2C e-commerce expands at the expense of traditional retailing; thus, addressing the e-commerce trend becomes traditional firms’ strategic imperative. Conversely, in digitally unrelated sectors, B2C e-commerce has emerged through a new niche formation process whereby B2C e-commerce coexists with traditional retailing; thus, embracing the e-commerce trend becomes the traditional firms’ strategic choice.