Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? The Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader.
Front Psychol. 2017; 8:1802.FP

Abstract

Finding ways to enhance employee proactive behavior is a focal concern for academics and practitioners. Previous studies have found a positive association between empowering leadership and proactive behavior (Martin et al., 2013; Li et al., 2017). However, these studies lack elaboration on mechanisms and do not rule out the effect of employees' proactive personality during empirical testing. We investigate empowering leadership from individual perspective due to the variation of empowerment levels even in the same team. Our research proposes a more elaborated theoretical model that explains why, and when, empowering leadership might promote employee proactive behavior. Specifically, we examine mediating mechanisms based on social cognitive theory and propose trust in leader competency as boundary condition. Using a sample of 280 leader-follower dyads from a large state-owned Chinese company, our results revealed that (1) empowering leadership was positively related to proactive behavior, with role breadth self-efficacy acting as a mediator for this relationship; (2) employees' trust in leader competency moderated both the empowering leadership-subordinate proactive behavior relationship and the mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy, such that the empowering leadership-subordinate proactive behavior relationship was weaker, and the mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy was stronger, for employees with high levels of trust in leader competency.

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Yin K

Dongling School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.

Xing L

School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.

Li C

Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China.

Guo Y

School of Economic and Management, Zhoukou Normal University, Zhoukou, China.

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

29163249

Citation

Yin, Kui, et al. "Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? the Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader." Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, 2017, p. 1802.

Yin K, Xing L, Li C, et al. Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? The Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1802.

Yin, K., Xing, L., Li, C., & Guo, Y. (2017). Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? The Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1802. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01802

Yin K, et al. Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? the Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1802. PubMed PMID: 29163249.

* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case

TY - JOUR T1 - Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? The Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader. AU - Yin,Kui, AU - Xing,Lu, AU - Li,Can, AU - Guo,Yungui, Y1 - 2017/11/01/ PY - 2017/02/04/received PY - 2017/09/29/accepted PY - 2017/11/23/entrez PY - 2017/11/23/pubmed PY - 2017/11/23/medline KW - empowering leadership KW - proactive behavior KW - proactive personality KW - role breadth self-efficacy KW - trust in leader competency SP - 1802 EP - 1802 JF - Frontiers in psychology JO - Front Psychol VL - 8 N2 - Finding ways to enhance employee proactive behavior is a focal concern for academics and practitioners. Previous studies have found a positive association between empowering leadership and proactive behavior (Martin et al., 2013; Li et al., 2017). However, these studies lack elaboration on mechanisms and do not rule out the effect of employees' proactive personality during empirical testing. We investigate empowering leadership from individual perspective due to the variation of empowerment levels even in the same team. Our research proposes a more elaborated theoretical model that explains why, and when, empowering leadership might promote employee proactive behavior. Specifically, we examine mediating mechanisms based on social cognitive theory and propose trust in leader competency as boundary condition. Using a sample of 280 leader-follower dyads from a large state-owned Chinese company, our results revealed that (1) empowering leadership was positively related to proactive behavior, with role breadth self-efficacy acting as a mediator for this relationship; (2) employees' trust in leader competency moderated both the empowering leadership-subordinate proactive behavior relationship and the mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy, such that the empowering leadership-subordinate proactive behavior relationship was weaker, and the mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy was stronger, for employees with high levels of trust in leader competency. SN - 1664-1078 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/29163249/Are_Empowered_Employees_More_Proactive_The_Contingency_of_How_They_Evaluate_Their_Leader_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -

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Are Empowered Employees More Proactive? The Contingency of How They Evaluate Their Leader.Front Psychol. 2017; 8:1802.FP