Friendship, transformational leadership and organizational climate

Stressed at work and distressed out of work: Unveiling the implications of time-related work stress on work climate in the nonprofit sector

Time-related work stress is prevailing in today’s society. This is especially true in the nonprofit sector, where people are willing to self-sacrifice in order to contribute to organizational performance. Although literature highlights the shortcomings of time-related work stress, little is still known on its negative impact on work climate. The article contributes to fill this gap, shedding light on the consequences of time-related work stress on work climate in a large sample of people employed in the nonprofit sector. Secondary data were obtained from the latest wave of the European Working Condition Survey. Conditional process analysis was used to investigate the effects of time-related stress on work climate, considering the mediating role of work-life conflicts and work engagement. Stress caused by time constraints did not have direct implications on work climate. However, it expanded exposure to work-life conflicts and impaired work engagement, thus indirectly impoverishing work climate. Since it is hard to escape time pressures in modern work environments, precautions should be taken to protect employees against the backlash of time-related stress on work climate. Alongside empowering people to cope with work-related stress, tailored human resource management practices should be designed to address the sources of time pressures in the workplace.

How to stimulate employees’ innovative behavior: Internal social capital, workplace friendship and innovative identity

With the digital transformation of the economy and the rise of community innovation, how stimulating employees’ innovative behavior (EIB) becomes the basis for building sustainable competitive advantage in organizations. However, research has yet to systematically investigate the effect of internal social capital (ISC) on EIB. Based on social identity theory and resource conservation theory, this paper constructs a model to explain the mediating role of II between ISC and EIB and the moderating role of workplace friendship (WF). Using SPSS 27 and Amos 24 to analyze the data of 284 questionnaires, the results show that (1) ISC has a positive effect on EIB, (2) II plays a partial mediating effect in the relationship between ISC and EIB, and (3) WF has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between ISC and EIB. The conclusion provides management insight and practical guidance for creating an internal organizational climate to promote EIBs.

Developing sustainable workplace through leadership: Perspectives of transformational leadership and of organizational citizenship behavior

The objective of this study was to investigate the leadership style of the supervisor to develop the organization's sustainable workplace of and the extra-role behavior of employees (i.e., OCB). An organizational context of the immigration officer is explored by using the data collected from a survey of 453 immigration officers from 26 immigration officer teams in Taiwan. This study has verified the transformational leadership and organizational commitment that they have positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of the immigration officers. Moreover, it showed that the organizational climate has a context effect on organizational commitment and OCB. Furthermore, the results of this study have shown that an aggregated transformational leadership has cross-level interactions on OCB. This study also found that the transformational leadership has strong effect on organizational commitment and OCB. This study adopts a cross-level study taking organizational environmental factors and cross-level interactions as research considerations. Because of the focus on group-level impact, the research methodology can apply the supervisor's leadership style and the organizational climate to measure whether the immigration officers have a high degree of organizational commitment and influence their OCB performance across levels. The organizational commitment of the immigration officers and their individual OCB performance could be improved by converging the organizational context effect of aggregated transformational leadership and organizational climate. This study found that the application of the transformational leadership is extremely helpful for an organization to develop sustainable workplace and extra-role behavior of employees.

The impact of transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour: Evidence from Malaysian higher education context

BACKGROUND: Research on Transformational leadership has received attention among scholars, particularly in the field of management. However, the discussion about this issue in the context of higher education is still limited, particularly in the context of Research Universities in Malaysia. Therefore, this study is conducted to address this gap. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the role of organizational commitment in mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). METHODS: The study was conducted by a structured survey questionnaire on 250 academic staff in Malaysian public universities (MRUs). Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) via SmartPLS software was utilized to examine study hypothesis. RESULTS: The findings of this study showed that transformational leadership has significant direct effect on organizational commitment and organizational commitment has significant direct effect on OCB. These results highlight the importance of mediating role of organizational commitment in predicting transformational leadership –OCB relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The leaders in Malaysian research universities could utilize these findings by setting up strategies to promote transformational leadership and maximize the feeling of academic staff of being committed; this will enhance citizenship behaviour of academic staff. It adds empirical evidence in the existing literature that organizational commitment has a mediation effects on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour, especially in the Malaysian higher education context.

Engaging by releasing: an investigation of the consequences of team autonomy on work engagement

Purpose

Team autonomy involves empowering employees to achieve greater control over organizational dynamics. Such empowerment may augment the employees’ vigor, dedication and absorption at work. However, there is limited evidence on the contents of the relationship between team autonomy and work engagement. This paper aims to fill in this gap, shedding light into the manifold implications of team autonomy on employees’ work engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

A serial mediation analysis was designed to collect evidence of the effects of team autonomy on work engagement. Drawing on self-determination theory, social comparison theory and social facilitation theory, team member-supervisor exchanges and organizational climate were contemplated in the analysis as mediating variables. An ordinary least square regression-based model relying on 5,000 bootstrap samples was implemented. The study focused on a large sample of Europeans employed in the manufacturing sector (n = 4,588).

Findings

Team autonomy had tiny, but statistically significant effects on work engagement. Good relationships between team members and supervisors positively mediated the effects of team autonomy on work engagement. Conversely, the organizational climate did not have a significant mediating role. A statistically significant serial mediation effect linked team autonomy and work engagement via team member-supervisor exchanges and organizational climate.

Practical implications

Team autonomy contributes to increasing the employees’ vigor, dedication and absorption at work. The enhancement of team member-supervisor relationships fosters the engagement of team members who experience a greater autonomy at work. The effects of team autonomy on organizational climate are ambiguous and mediated by an improvement of the relationships between team members and supervisors.

Originality/value

The paper originally investigates the implications of team autonomy on work engagement, emphasizing the importance of social exchanges at work to realize the full potential of team autonomy.

Political will, political behavior and career success: The role of political climate and supervisor political support

BACKGROUND: Competition for positions in higher education institutions cannot be separated from the political approach taken by individuals. Political behavior as a factor in achieving individual career goals in higher education institutions was studied. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the antecedents of political behavior and their effect among leaders in State Islamic Universities in West Java, revealing the interaction between organizational political climate and supervisory political support. METHODS: A systematic sampling method was used, with a sample size of 427 leaders of State Islamic Universities. Data were analyzed by using Hierarchical Regression Analysis (HRA) to test the hypotheses using STATA 13 software. RESULTS: Results indicated perception of political will was significantly and positively related to political behavior. Organizational political climate also had a significantly moderating effect on the correlation between political will and behavior. Political behavior effect on career success was largely positive, and the relationship between the perception of political behavior and career success was moderated by supervisory political support. CONCLUSIONS: Government support for employee careers could take the form of the promotion of political behavior, strengthened by supervisory political support. Fostering political behavior among employees, by utilizing organizational political climate as an environmental factor would increase both individual and organizational success.

The impact of subordinate ingratiation on supervisor punishment omission: A social judgment theory perspective

BACKGROUND: Upward ingratiation is a universal workplace phenomenon because leaders have more power and resources, which are closely related to the interests of subordinates. This phenomenon is especially common in Chinese culture due to the large power distance between superior and subordinate. Subordinate ingratiation appears to influence supervisors’ affective responses and punishment decisions. OBJECTIVE: The study’s purpose was to analyze the relationship between subordinate ingratiation and supervisor punishment omission in China, as well as the mediating role of interpersonal affect and the moderating role of authentic leadership. METHODS: Data were collected from 389 supervisor-subordinate dyads in China. The reliability and validity of measurement scales were demonstrated. Multiple regression analyses and bootstrapping tests were used to examine the research model. RESULTS: Subordinate ingratiation is positively related to supervisor punishment omission. Interpersonal affect fully mediates the relationship between subordinate ingratiation and supervisor punishment omission. Authentic leadership negatively moderates the relationships between both subordinate ingratiation and interpersonal affect and subordinate ingratiation and supervisor punishment omission. The moderating effect of authentic leadership between subordinate ingratiation and supervisor punishment omission is partially mediated by interpersonal affect. CONCLUSIONS: The findings contribute to the theory about the effect of ingratiation, with implications for practice and future research.

Empirical research on the role of internal social capital upon the innovation performance of cooperative firms

BACKGROUND: Internal social capital in the cooperative firms has emerged in recent years as an important concept for improving innovation performance. OBJECTIVE: We explore whether the cohabitation of the different interacting social groups, namely cooperative members, and non-cooperative members, will generate disparate impacts on the circumstance for enhanced innovation. METHODOLOGY: A sample of 180 cooperative firms in Ethiopia, with two respondents per firm, consisting of one adherent and one non-adherent member, we reflected on the theory of social capital, and by adopting a relational, cognitive, and structural concept. We conducted Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through PLS to analyze the importance of each group for innovation performance. RESULTS: Our results suggested that the internal interaction between adherent and non-adherent members of cooperative enterprises positively influences their “innovation performance”. The findings also revealed that non-adherent members were more involved in building innovation than adherent members. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide empirical evidence that internal social factors are essential assets for effective innovation in cooperatives, and established a new line of research within an empirical perspective.

A novel approach for the design of context-aware services for social inclusion and education

BACKGROUND: The new generation networks (5G and beyond) will allow us to collect and process real-time information about a user and his context. Analyzing the adolescents’ behaviour and taking into account relations between their psychological frailty and socio-cultural context, it is possible to highlight situations of vulnerability. OBJECTIVE: It is crucial to shed light on how the nature of social relationships and the similarity among individuals play a role in the collective dynamics. METHODS: To understand these dynamics, Evolutionary Game Theory and the analysis of social networks, modeled as multiplex networks, are useful. RESULTS: Thanks to a simulative approach we evaluate the emergence and maintenance of cooperation within a class, assessing the role of social network structure and of the homophily on the dynamics. CONCLUSION: Exploiting these tools it is possible to design innovative ICT context-aware services based on collective cooperation and aimed at improving social inclusion, education and support for frail people.

Theoretical development of servant leadership in a military context: A mixed methods research

Purpose: The present study aimed to both develop and validate a model for servant leadership in a military context. Design/methodology/approach: The exploratory sequential mixed methods design with two phases was used. Firstly, in the qualitative phase, the process of servant leadership in a military context was developed using a systematic approach of grounded theory. Secondly, in the quantitative phase, the relationship between the components of servant leadership was explained and the developed model was validated. Findings: The result of the qualitative phase show certain personal, organizational and social antecedents form the ideology of sacrifice in leaders which include: spiritually, intelligent and developed personality (personal antecedents); organizational culture, models and incentives (organizational antecedents); and reference groups and social events (social antecedents). The ideology of sacrifice resulted in choosing special behaviors of servant leadership by leaders. These behaviors include: creating service climate; developing standards; building trust; empowering followers comprehensively; and effective persuasion which cause positive personal and organizational outcomes. According to the results of quantitative phase, the proposed model has an appropriate fitness. Practical implications: The results of this research can be used to develop certain criteria for selecting servant leaders. Accordingly, certain training programs can be developed to promote competencies in organizational leaders. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to develop a model for servant leadership in a military context using a mixed methods design.

How mindfulness impacts the positive forms of leadership and enhances performance at workplace

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness is a multi-millenary concept that is fundamental to meditative traditions. Nowadays it is a well-documented psychological construct and a proven therapeutic technique, particularly in stress reduction and depressive relapse prevention. However, mindfulness and its effects on management practices are still relatively unexplored in the literature. OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to address this shortage and demonstrate the claims that mindfulness is a psychological construct that is doubly beneficial to business executives by supporting a more balanced relationship to work while promoting the adoption of more positive and effective leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and authentic). METHOD: A model using positive forms of leadership as mediators of mindfulness / performance relationship is proposed for this assessment. A quantitate analysis is performed on a sample of 319 African managers, 95% of which are South Africans. RESULTS: The data supports the idea that mindfulness is a resource that can be mobilized for inducing transformational and authentic leadership development and positive organizational behaviors. CONCLUSION: Mindfulness seems to be a very interesting predictor of transformational and authentic leadership styles, which prove to be the most powerful generators of performance

Latent Classes of Principals' Transformational Leadership and the Organizational Climate of Kindergartens

Background

Organizational climate refers to an individual’s perception and experience of the climate of the work environment, and it is the most important environmental variable that affects individuals’ work performance. This study aims to classify characteristics of transformational leadership among kindergarten principals and examine their relationship to organizational climate.

Methods

Convenience sampling yielded 498 kindergarten principals who completed the “Questionnaire on the Principal’s Transformational Leadership Behavior” and “Questionnaire on Organizational Climate.” Ethics approval was obtained from the Academic Ethics Committee of the College of Psychology of Northeast Normal University prior to starting the study.

Results

Three latent classes were identified, including the high-level (68.8%), care-virtues (35.7%), and virtues groups (5.3%). There were significant differences in support, directive, restrictive, colleague, intimate, and disengaged behavior scores between groups. In terms of support, colleague, and intimate behavior, the high-level group had the highest scores, followed by the care-virtues group and virtues group, respectively. Regarding restrictive and disengaged behaviors, the highest scores were received by the virtues group, followed by the care-virtues and high-level group, respectively.

Conclusion

The study suggested that principals’ transformational leadership could be classified into three latent classes that are related to organizational climate.