The Paradoxical Effect of Inclusive Leadership on Subordinates' Creativity

Does paradoxical leadership influence employees' proactive work behavior? A study based on employees in Chinese state-owned enterprises

Paradoxical leadership has emerged as an increasingly important research topic in the context of Chinese state-owned enterprises, which are currently facing contradictions between maintaining stability and implementing changes, short-term profits and long-term sustainable development, and public nature and marketization. Based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, this study employed a questionnaire survey to explore the influence of paradoxical leadership on employees' proactive work behavior and the mediating role of superior-subordinate guanxi and self-efficacy. The study involved 540 employees working in Chinese state-owned enterprises. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test the validity of the measurement model and regression to evaluate the direct effects. Subsequently, we used bootstrapping to confirm mediation and serial mediation effects. The study found that (1) Paradoxical leadership can effectively enhance employees' proactive work behavior; (2) The superior-subordinate guanxi plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behavior, that is, paradoxical leadership enhances employees' proactive work behavior by improving the superior-subordinate guanxi; (3) Self-efficacy plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behaviors, that is, paradoxical leadership promotes employees' proactive work behavior by enhancing their self-efficacy; (4) The superior-subordinate guanxi and self-efficacy play a chain mediating effect between paradoxical leadership and employees' proactive work behavior, forming a chain of "Paradoxical leadership-Superior-subordinate Guanxi-Self-efficacy-Employees' proactive work behaviors." This study enriches the theoretical research on paradoxical leadership and provides suggestions for state-owned enterprises to enhance employees' proactive work behavior.

Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Innovation Performance During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak: Mediating Role of Employee Innovation Behavior and Moderating Role of Psychological Empowerment

This study investigates the effect of inclusive leadership on innovation performance with a mediating role of employee innovation behavior and the moderating role of psychological empowerment (PE). Supervisors and employees of Saudi manufacturing firms are the participants of this study. This study used a quantitative research technique with a cross-sectional approach and a self-administrative survey questionnaire to collect the data. The data were analyzed by using the Smart PLS 3 software. The results depict that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on the firm's innovation performance. Employees' innovation behavior has a significant mediating effect on the association of inclusive leadership and innovation performance. Findings revealed that PE has an important moderating role in the association of inclusive leadership and innovation performance. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge by finding that inclusive leadership has a significant effect on the firm's innovative performance and PE is crucial to enhance innovation performance.

Inclusive Leadership and Employees’ Helping Behaviors: Role of Psychological Factors

Based on social learning theory, the present study investigates the influence of inclusive leadership on employees’ helping behaviors. Further, psychological mechanisms (psychological safety and psychological engagement) are investigated in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employees’ helping behaviors. The data was collected in three time-lags through a questionnaire from 409 nurses working in the health sector of Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed through IBM-SPSS and AMOS to test the proposed model. The study’s findings show that inclusive leadership positively influences employees helping behaviors. Moreover, the psychological factors (i.e., safety and engagement) mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employees’ helping behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for managers, practitioners, and organizations are discussed, while study limitations and directions for future research are also highlighted.

How Does Inclusive Leadership Curb Workers’ Emotional Exhaustion? The Mediation of Caring Ethical Climate and Psychological Safety

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the politics, economy, and society of the world, which has dealt the most severe blow to the hospitality industry. Meanwhile, the pandemic and government control policies have brought high psychological pressure to hospitality front-line employees, resulting in emotional exhaustion. As a part of burnout syndrome, emotional exhaustion poses a threat to employees’ mental health, career sustainability, and well-being. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to investigate the curb effectiveness of inclusive leadership on emotional exhaustion and to explore the mediation roles of ethical climate and psychological safety between them. Time-lagged data were collected from 65 teams and 358 hospitality front-line employees working in Chinese hotels in two stages with a one-month gap. This research verified that inclusive leadership has a negative impact on emotional exhaustion both indirectly through the mediation roles of ethical climate and psychological safety. And the ethical climate and psychological safety played partial mediation roles between inclusive leadership and emotional exhaustion. In theory, the findings explored the dual mediation mechanism of the inhibitory effect of inclusive leadership on emotional exhaustion. In practice, we provided the training and correct guidance to develop inclusive leadership for hotel enterprises and to resolve the emotional exhaustion of employees, which can enhance sustainability in careers.

Servant Leadership and Creativity: A Study of the Sequential Mediating Roles of Psychological Safety and Employee Well-Being

With today’s increasingly dynamic and competitive business environment, creativity is critical for enterprises to enhance their competitiveness. Companies today invest and seek new ways to enhance creativity of employees within the organization. Our study describes the effects of servant leadership, psychological safety, and employee well-being on creativity under the conservation of resources theory. We used a sample of 252 full-time employees in the United Kingdom who had been recruited online and collected their data for analysis. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test the validity of the measurement model and regression to evaluate the direct effects. Subsequently, we used bootstrapping to confirm mediation and serial mediation effects. The results showed that servant leadership was positively related to creativity and that psychological safety and employee well-being were serial mediators between them.

Inclusive leadership and employee work engagement: a moderated mediation model

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee work engagement by identifying person-job fit as a mediator, and employee felt responsibility as a moderator.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing a two-wave survey from 261 employees across various industries in China, the study tests hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis with the PROCESS procedure developed by Hayes.

Findings

The results show that inclusive leadership is positively related to employee work engagement through person-job fit. The results further demonstrate that employees’ felt responsibility moderates the positive direct relationship between inclusive leadership and person-job fit as well as the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and work engagement via person-job fit.

Research limitations/implications

Although two-wave data were used to test the model, issues of common method bias cannot be excluded because the data were collected from a single source (the employee).

Practical implications

Organizations should promote and develop inclusive leaders in the workplace to enhance employee work engagement, and pay attention to employees' felt responsibility for their work to ensure effectiveness of inclusive leadership.

Originality/value

Integrating social information processing theory and person-environment fit theory, this study enriches the theoretical foundation of inclusive leadership scholarship. This study deepens the understanding of the mechanism underlying the link between inclusive leadership and work engagement, as well as an important boundary condition of this relationship, by examining the mediating role of person-job fit and the moderating role of felt responsibility.

Moderating Multiple Mediation Model of the Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Employee Innovative Behavior

Leadership is an important antecedent variable of employee innovative behavior. In previous studies, the influence of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior mainly focus on one mediating variable, which may lead to a deviation in parameter estimation due to the omission of other mediating variables. According to the social cognitive theory and motivation theory and from the perspective of cognitive-motivation integration, this study establishes a moderating multi-mediation model to understand the impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior. Psychological safety and creative self-efficacy are used as mediating variables, and innovation rewards are used as moderating variables. The data are collected from 418 employees of the manufacturing industry in China. The results show that, at first, inclusive leadership has a positive effect on employee innovative behavior. Secondly, both psychological safety and creative self-efficacy play partial mediating effects between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior, with the effect of the former being significantly smaller than that of the latter. Thirdly, innovation rewards positively moderate the relationships of "psychological safety-employee innovative behavior" and of "creative self-efficacy-employee innovative behavior." Fourthly, innovation rewards positively moderate the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior through psychological safety and creative self-efficacy. These findings are not only helpful to expand how inclusive leadership influences the innovative behavior of employees but also provides some suggestions for enterprise innovation development.

The Inter-Relationship between CSR, Inclusive Leadership and Employee Creativity: A Case of the Banking Sector

The stiff situation of competitiveness in every industry has posed some serious challenges for businesses all over the world. Thus, every segment of the business is realizing the importance of creativity to remain alive in a cut-throat competitive environment. However, the banking sector has not received due attention in this regard. To bridge this gap, the current study was carried out to explore the relationship of employees’ perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of their bank and employee creativity with the mediating effect of inclusive leadership (IL). The data for the current study were collected from the banking sector of Pakistan through a self-administered questionnaire (n = 533) and were analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS. The statistical findings of the current survey validate the direct relationship between CSR and employee creativity. The results also confirm the mediating effect of IL in this relationship. The findings of the current survey will help policymakers from banking institutions to improve their understanding of CSR. Furthermore, these findings will help policymakers to embrace employee creativity as a “new normal” for this sector.

Why and When Do Good Soldiers Behave Unethically? Introducing Conservation of Resources Theory to Explain the Curvilinear Effects of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Previous research about organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) has produced contradictory results. Drawing from the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the present study tries to explain the contradictory findings by examining the curvilinear relationship between OCB and CWB. Using data collected at three time points from 426 employees and 110 supervisors in Chinese companies, data analysis shows that OCB has an inverted U-shaped relationship with CWB. The results also demonstrate that citizenship fatigue mediates the relationship between OCB and CWB, perceived organizational support (POS) moderates the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue. In addition, POS moderates the mediating effect of citizenship fatigue in the inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between OCB and CWB. This mediating effect is stronger under conditions of low POS than high POS. The findings present a complementary explanation of the conflicting relationships between OCB and CWB.

Inclusive Leadership and Career Sustainability: Mediating Roles of Supervisor Developmental Feedback and Thriving at Work

Career sustainability is a well-researched issue in academics and other sectors. Technology advancements and COVID-19 have jeopardized career sustainability. Numerous studies have explored the influence of individual characteristics on career sustainability, but few have focused on leadership. In addition, cultural factors must be considered because leadership is rooted in culture. In particular, inclusive leadership reflects traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, based on self-determination social exchange theories, we analyzed the effects of inclusive leadership on career sustainability as well as the roles of thriving at work and supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) in career sustainability. In total, 363 samples were collected from China. The results revealed that inclusive leadership improves career sustainability through SDF and thriving at work. Theoretically, our study fills the research gap and establishes a mechanism and theoretical framework for inclusive leadership and career sustainability. Practically, we offer guidance for enterprises to cultivate inclusive leadership and improve career sustainability.

How Inclusive Leadership Enhances Follower Taking Charge: The Mediating Role of Affective Commitment and the Moderating Role of Traditionality

PURPOSE

Leaders try to stimulate follower taking charge to promote organizational change and effectiveness in current increasingly complex and changing environment. Based on social identity theory, we developed a mediated moderation model in which affective commitment was theorized as a mediating mechanism underlining why followers feel motivated to taking charge with the supervision of inclusive leadership. Furthermore, traditionality should be a relevant boundary condition to moderate such a relationship in China.

METHODS

There was three times lagged research conducted at the city of Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Nanjing. A series of valid questionnaires were accomplished by 246 participants, including the inclusive leadership, affective commitment, traditionality, and follower taking charge. Our model adopted hierarchical regression analysis to explore hypothesis.

RESULTS

Inclusive leadership is positively related to affective commitment (β= 0.589, p < 0.001). Affective commitment was positively related to follower taking charge (β= 0.165, p < 0.01). Affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and taking charge with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals [0.068, 0.233]. Interactive effect of affective commitment and traditionality on follower taking charge was also significant (β=-0.189, p <0.001), and the effect of affective commitment on follower taking charge was more pronounced and positive with low (b = 0.361, p <0.001) rather than high (b =0.172, ns.) level of affective commitment. Moreover, the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on taking charge through affective commitment was significant when traditionality was low (b = 0.270, 95% CI = [0.179, 0.371]), the indirect effect became insignificant with high traditionality (b = 0.046, 95% CI = [-0.034, 0.123]).

CONCLUSION

Our study shows that affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and follower taking charge. Moreover, the influence of affective commitment on follower taking charge was moderated by traditionality. Affective commitment was positively associated with taking charge only for followers with low traditionality. Additionally, the mediated moderation relationship between inclusive leadership and follower taking charge via affective commitment was stronger under low traditionality.

How and When Does Inclusive Leadership Curb Psychological Distress During a Crisis? Evidence From the COVID-19 Outbreak

Traumatic events such as a pandemic shatter the assumption of the workplace as a safe place. Nurses face risks of life-threatening infection, which can create psychological distress. Quality of care for infected patients depends on mental well-being of nurses which calls for research on predictors of stress among health care workers. Responding to a call for research on the effects of leadership styles on psychological distress during traumatic events, this paper uses the theoretical lens of social exchange theory and contributes to literature on relationships between inclusive leadership, psychological distress, work engagement, and self-sacrifice. Participants of this cross sectional study included 497 registered nurses from five hospitals in Wuhan. Data were collected with temporal separation through an online questionnaire. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data. Results show inclusive leadership has a significant negative relationship with psychological distress. Work engagement mediates this relationship, and nurses’ self-sacrificial behavior moderates it. Findings indicate inclusive leadership style serves as a sustainable mechanism to reduce psychological distress during pandemics. It can operationalize the delivery of mental health support in real-time in work settings. Results provide empirical support for social exchange theory through high work engagement to help control psychological distress among nurses.