Ethical leadership exerts a powerful influence on employees, and most studies share a basic premise that leaders display the same level of ethical leadership to all subordinates. However, we ...challenge this assumption and suggest that subordinates’ characteristics and supervisors’ characteristics may jointly influence supervisor ethical leadership behavior. Drawing upon research on person–supervisor fit and moral identity, we explore the questions of whether and how supervisor–subordinate (in)congruence in moral identity affects the emergence of supervisor ethical leadership behavior. Using multi-level and multi-source data, the results of cross-level polynomial regressions revealed that the less aligned a supervisor’s moral identity was with a subordinate’s, the more negative sentiments the supervisor held toward the subordinate, which, in turn, influenced the supervisor’s ethical leadership behavior. We also argue that not all types of congruence are alike. Our results confirmed that supervisor negative sentiments toward subordinates were higher in low–low congruence dyads than in high–high congruence dyads. Results also confirmed that by reducing supervisor negative sentiments toward subordinates, supervisor–subordinate congruence in moral identity had an indirect positive effect on supervisor ethical leadership behavior. Overall, this research highlights the importance of taking both subordinates’ and supervisors’ traits into consideration in understanding the emergence of ethical leadership.
Employees’ perception of their intrateam status plays an important role in the leader–member interaction process. Combining relational fairness theory and status theory, the present study reveals how ...leadership empowerment behavior (LEB) affects employee and team creativity. Specifically, we propose that LEB may increase employee creativity by elevating employee self-perceived status and enhance team creativity through fostering a feedback-seeking climate in the team. Moreover, we propose that, at the team level, team status conflict moderates the relationship between LEB and feedback-seeking climate such that LEB is only positively related to feedback-seeking climate when status conflict is low but not when it is high. We further propose that team feedback-seeking climate also mediates the interactive effect of LEB and status conflict on team creativity. Results based on data collected from a sample of 84 teams with 392 employees supported our hypotheses. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and propose future research directions.
Extant research has uniformly demonstrated that leader humility is beneficial for subordinates, teams, and even organizations. Drawing upon attribution theory, we challenge this prevailing conclusion ...by identifying a potential dark side of leader humility and suggesting that leader humility can be a mixed blessing. We propose that the effects of leader humility hinge on subordinates' attributions of such humble behavior. On the one hand, when subordinates attribute leader humility in a self-serving way, leader humility is positively associated with subordinate psychological entitlement, which in turn increases workplace deviance. On the other hand, when subordinates do not attribute leader humility in a self-serving way, leader humility is positively associated with leader-member exchange, which in turn decreases workplace deviance. We found support for our hypotheses across a field study and an experiment. Taken together, our findings reveal the perils and benefits of leader humility and the importance of examining subordinate attributions in this unique leadership process.
Previous research on the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity has found mixed results, calling for more research to explore alternative mechanism and boundary conditions ...in this relationship. In this research, drawing on regulatory focus theory and social role theory, we propose that empowering leadership has a positive relationship with employee creativity through employee promotion focus and that this relationship is stronger for male (vs. female) leaders and for female (vs. male) employees. We conducted a multi‐source survey study and a vignette experiment to test our theoretical model. Results across these two studies supported our hypotheses. Our findings offer implications for research and practice regarding empowering leadership and creativity.
Although empirical evidence has accumulated showing that abusive supervision has devastating effects on subordinates’ work attitudes and outcomes, knowledge about how such behavior impacts ...supervisors who exhibit it is limited. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we develop and test a model that specifies how and when engaging in abusive supervisory behavior has immediate benefits for supervisors. Via two experiments and a multi-wave diary study across 10 consecutive workdays, we found that engaging in abusive supervisory behavior was associated with improved recovery level. Moreover, abusive supervisory behavior had a positive indirect effect on work engagement through recovery level. Interestingly, supplemental analyses suggested that these beneficial effects were short-lived because, over longer periods of time (i.e., one week and beyond), abusive supervisory behavior was negatively related to supervisors’ recovery level and engagement. The strength of these short-lived beneficial effects was also bound by personal and contextual factors. Empathic concern––a personal factor––and job demands––a contextual factor––moderated the observed effects. Specifically, supervisors with high empathic concern or low job demands experienced fewer benefits after engaging in abusive supervisory behavior. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and propose future research directions.
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•Moisture-induced discoloration material NiBr2 is developed for low humidity detection based on its reversible material transition behavior.•The NiBr2 humidity sensor exhibits good ...sensitivity in the low RH range of 7 %–24 %, with impedance variations of nearly 5 orders of magnitude.•The NiBr2 humidity sensor manifests rapid response characteristic with 2 s of response time in low humidity detection.
Low humidity monitoring has been attached to adequate attention in a wide range of industrial fields, such as medical device hermetic packaging, semiconductor manufacturing and transformer manufacturing. However, it remains challenging to detect slight moisture change in low-humidity environment for conventional ionic-type humidity sensors. Herein, Nickel (II) bromide (NiBr2) is explored to be of a reversible moisture-induced discoloration behavior and highly sensitive to moisture in low humidity environment. NiBr2 humidity sensor delivers a tremendous impedance change nearly to 5 orders of magnitude in the low relative humidity (RH) ranging from 7 % to 24 % and the response time is only about 2 s when RH increases from 11 % to 33 %. The excellent performance for low-humidity detection can be mainly attributed to the reversible bulk absorption behavior to water molecules that lead to a reversible material transition between NiBr2 and NiBr2⋅6H2O. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of the sensor toward the range of 7 %–24 % RH exhibits nearly 5 orders of magnitude enhancement than that in medium-high humidity range of 26 %–95 % RH, which indicates that the sensitivity of the sensor to water molecules caused by the bulk absorption behavior is better than that dominated by the surface adsorption behavior. The results demonstrate that the bulk absorption behavior-mediated reversible material transition provide efficient guidance to realize low-humidity detection.
•Little is known about how abusive supervision affects actors.•We reveal that abusive supervisory behavior leads to enhanced state sense of power.•Abusive supervision relates to managerial ...self-efficacy via state sense of power.•Low chronic sense of power strengthens these relationships.•Managerial self-efficacy further relates to task-oriented leadership behavior.
While a large number of studies have shown the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on subordinates’ work attitudes and outcomes, little is known about how abusive supervision impacts supervisors themselves. Drawing upon self-perception theory and power-dependence theory, we take a unique actor-focused approach to examine how and when engaging in abusive supervisory behavior may benefit actors (i.e., supervisors). Specifically, we propose that abusive supervisory behavior is positively related to supervisors’ state sense of power, which in turn positively relates to their managerial self-efficacy and task-oriented leadership behavior. Furthermore, the relationship between abusive supervisory behavior and state sense of power and the positive indirect effect of abusive supervisory behavior on managerial self-efficacy via state sense of power are stronger for supervisors with low, rather than high, levels of chronic sense of power. Our hypotheses are substantially supported by a multi-wave field diary study (Study 1) conducted across 10 consecutive workdays and three experiments (Studies 2a, 2b, and 3). Moreover, supplementary analyses showed that abusive supervisory behavior was positively related to sense of power and managerial self-efficacy only in the short term (i.e., these relationships turned negative after one week). Our findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by delineating a nuanced view of the supervisory outcomes of abusive supervision.
Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we develop and test a theoretical model that specifies how and when employee humor toward leaders affects leader abusive supervision. We propose that ...employee humor is negatively associated with leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy. Furthermore, the negative indirect relationship between employee humor and leader abusive supervision via leader relational energy is stronger for female leaders than for male leaders. An experiment and a multi-wave, multi-source field study provide substantial support for our hypotheses. Our findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by identifying employee humor as a safe and effective bottom-up approach to prevent leader abusive supervision.
Summary
Research on abusive supervision that adopts an actor‐centric perspective has found that abusive acts have immediate cognitive and affective consequences for supervisors. Less immediate ...consequences are also possible when perpetrators engage in later sensemaking by talking with others about their actions that violated interpersonal norms. In this research, we explore whether, how, and when abusive supervision talk may affect supervisors' subsequent abusive supervision toward subordinates. Drawing upon cognitive‐motivational‐relational theory, we propose that abusive supervision talk enhances supervisors' hostility toward the abused subordinate, which in turn increases their subsequent abusive supervisory behavior toward the subordinate. We also propose that person‐centered responses by listeners (i.e., supervisors' coworkers) strengthen the positive indirect effect of abusive supervision talk on subsequent abusive supervisory behavior via hostility. Results from an experiment and a multi‐source, multi‐wave field study lend support to these predictions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and directions for future research.
Mindfulness has generally been viewed as beneficial for individuals at workplace. However, our understanding of its’ potential costs is still very limited. Based on social information processing ...theory, we propose that employee trait mindfulness amplifies the harm of abusive supervision on employees in terms of increased hostile attribution bias and deviant behavior. Results from a multi-wave multi-source field study (Study 1) and an experimental study (Study 2) supported our hypotheses. Our findings offer some important theoretical and practical implications.
