TY - JOUR
T1 - LMX-differentiation strengthens the prosocial consequences of leader humility
T2 - An identification and social exchange perspective
AU - Carnevale, Joel
AU - Huang, Lei
AU - Paterson, Ted
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - The current study proposes a cross-level moderated-mediation model to explain how and when leader humility motivates followers’ prosociality. Drawing on social identity theory, we theorize that humble leaders motivate their followers to engage in helping behavior by fostering a sense of shared identity. Moreover, consistent with research emphasizing the inclusion of the larger social environment in exploring leader-identity relationships, we draw from social exchange theory to investigate the role of LMX-differentiation in moderating this positive indirect effect. We collected survey data in three waves with a time lag of three weeks between each wave from 233 employees and their 45 supervising managers working at a large Chinese internet company. Our results provide support for the positive indirect effect of leader humility on follower helping via their identification with the leader. Further, our results show that this positive indirect effect is significant only in the presence of high LMX-differentiation, and becomes non-significant in the presence of low LMX-differentiation.
AB - The current study proposes a cross-level moderated-mediation model to explain how and when leader humility motivates followers’ prosociality. Drawing on social identity theory, we theorize that humble leaders motivate their followers to engage in helping behavior by fostering a sense of shared identity. Moreover, consistent with research emphasizing the inclusion of the larger social environment in exploring leader-identity relationships, we draw from social exchange theory to investigate the role of LMX-differentiation in moderating this positive indirect effect. We collected survey data in three waves with a time lag of three weeks between each wave from 233 employees and their 45 supervising managers working at a large Chinese internet company. Our results provide support for the positive indirect effect of leader humility on follower helping via their identification with the leader. Further, our results show that this positive indirect effect is significant only in the presence of high LMX-differentiation, and becomes non-significant in the presence of low LMX-differentiation.
KW - Helping behavior
KW - Identification
KW - Leader humility
KW - LMX differentiation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057338838&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85057338838&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.11.048
DO - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.11.048
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057338838
SN - 0148-2963
VL - 96
SP - 287
EP - 296
JO - Journal of Business Research
JF - Journal of Business Research
ER -