Followers’ reactions to leader differentiation

• Main Author: LIU, Yuchuan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: leader differentiation; justice; ocb; deviance; Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility; Organizational Behavior and Theory; Organizational Communication
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/298; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1298&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Leaders generally differentiate their relationships with followers, for example, by providing some with more respect, trust, support, or information than others (Liden & Graen, 1980). However, the effects of such leader differentiation on followers remain inconclusive such that research suggests that leader differentiation may have negative, positive, or null effects on favorable employee work-related outcomes (for a recent review, see Martin et al., 2018). To better understand the effects of leader differentiation, utilizing leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, I considered three inherently connected properties in the leader differentiation process – LMX differentiation, LMX quality and LMX social comparison (Martin et al., 2018). I theorized that the three properties interact to influence followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions and subsequently their discretionary behaviors toward their leaders. Results from three studies with different research designs and conducted in different cultures, largely supported my hypothesized conditional moderated mediation model. When LMX quality and LMX social comparison were both high, the negative impact of LMX differentiation on followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions was the weakest. In addition, when LMX quality and LMX social comparison were both high, LMX differentiation’s positive indirect effect on followers’ supervisor-directed deviance and its negative indirect effect on followers’ supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behaviors via followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions were the weakest.