IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/asiapa/v32y2015i3p645-670.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When and why empowering leadership increases followers’ taking charge: A multilevel examination in China

Author

Listed:
  • Shao-Long Li
  • Wei He
  • Kai Yam
  • Li-Rong Long

Abstract

Drawing from the cultural self-representation model, we propose a multilevel model to examine when and why empowering leadership elicits followers’ taking charge behaviors in China. Data from 310 full-time employees in 81 work groups provide support for the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy in transforming team-directed empowering leadership into individual taking charge behaviors. In addition, this mediation relationship is found to be attenuated by high differentiated empowering leadership and low individual power distance orientation. Finally, we find support for a three-way moderated mediation—which the moderating effect of differentiated empowering leadership is found to be significant only among followers who have low power distance orientation. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Shao-Long Li & Wei He & Kai Yam & Li-Rong Long, 2015. "When and why empowering leadership increases followers’ taking charge: A multilevel examination in China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 645-670, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:32:y:2015:i:3:p:645-670
    DOI: 10.1007/s10490-015-9424-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10490-015-9424-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10490-015-9424-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jixia Yang & Zhi‐Xue Zhang & Anne S. Tsui, 2010. "Middle Manager Leadership and Frontline Employee Performance: Bypass, Cascading, and Moderating Effects," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 654-678, June.
    2. Long Lam & Xu Huang & Dora Lau, 2012. "Leadership research in Asia: Taking the road less traveled?," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 195-204, June.
    3. Chun Hui & Cynthia Lee & Denise M. Rousseau, 2004. "Employment Relationships in China: Do Workers Relate to the Organization or to People?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 232-240, April.
    4. Jun Ishikawa, 2012. "Transformational leadership and gatekeeping leadership: The roles of norm for maintaining consensus and shared leadership in team performance," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 265-283, June.
    5. Kwok Leung & Zhenjiao Chen & Fan Zhou & Kai Lim, 2014. "The role of relational orientation as measured by face and renqing in innovative behavior in China: An indigenous analysis," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 105-126, March.
    6. Wei He & Chao C. Chen & Lihua Zhang, 2004. "Rewards-Allocation Preferences of Chinese Employees in the New Millennium: The Effects of Ownership Reform, Collectivism, and Goal Priority," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 221-231, April.
    7. Zhang, Xiaomeng & Zhou, Jing, 2014. "Empowering leadership, uncertainty avoidance, trust, and employee creativity: Interaction effects and a mediating mechanism," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 150-164.
    8. Kim, Tae-Yeol & Leung, Kwok, 2007. "Forming and reacting to overall fairness: A cross-cultural comparison," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 83-95, September.
    9. Xu Huang & Kan Shi & Zhijie Zhang & Yat Cheung, 2006. "The impact of participative leadership behavior on psychological empowerment and organizational commitment in Chinese state-owned enterprises: the moderating role of organizational tenure," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 345-367, September.
    10. Earley, P. Christopher, 1999. "Playing Follow the Leader: Status-Determining Traits in Relation to Collective Efficacy across Cultures," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 192-212, December.
    11. Raymond Loi & Long Lam & Ka Chan, 2012. "Coping with Job Insecurity: The Role of Procedural Justice, Ethical Leadership and Power Distance Orientation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 361-372, July.
    12. Robert Liden, 2012. "Leadership research in Asia: A brief assessment and suggestions for the future," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 205-212, June.
    13. Karen L Newman & Stanley D Nollen, 1996. "Culture and Congruence: The Fit Between Management Practices and national Culture," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 27(4), pages 753-779, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhou, Xing & Ma, Jianfeng & Dong, Xia, 2018. "Empowering supervision and service sabotage: A moderated mediation model based on conservation of resources theory," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 170-187.
    2. Shao-Long Li & Yuanyuan Huo & Li-Rong Long, 2017. "Chinese Traditionality Matters: Effects of Differentiated Empowering Leadership on Followers’ Trust in Leaders and Work Outcomes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 81-93, September.
    3. Xiaowan Lin & Long W. Lam & Lida L. Zhang, 2020. "The curvilinear relationship between job satisfaction and employee voice: Speaking up for the organization and the self," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 587-607, June.
    4. Michelle She Min Ngo & Michael J. Mustafa & Muhammad Mohsin Butt, 2023. "When and why employees take charge in the Workplace: the roles of learning goal orientation, role-breadth self-efficacy and co-worker support," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1681-1702, July.
    5. Dirk De Clercq & Tasneem Fatima & Sadia Jahanzeb, 2021. "Ingratiating with Despotic Leaders to Gain Status: The Role of Power Distance Orientation and Self-enhancement Motive," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 157-174, June.
    6. Usman Ghani & Muhammad Tahir Masood & Zia Ur Rehman, 2018. "Empowered Leadership and Employee Outcomes: Mediating Role of Employee Engagement," Global Social Sciences Review, Humanity Only, vol. 3(2), pages 303-320, June.
    7. Haeyoung Koo & Choelsoon Park, 2018. "Foundation of leadership in Asia: Leader characteristics and leadership styles review and research agenda," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 697-718, September.
    8. Shao-Long Li & Fang Sun & Mingze Li, 2019. "Sustainable Human Resource Management Nurtures Change-Oriented Employees: Relationship between High-Commitment Work Systems and Employees’ Taking Charge Behaviors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-15, June.
    9. Kihyun Lee & Yeon Joo Chae & Inyong Shin, 2016. "Motivational antecedents of leader-member exchange differentiation: Evidence from South Korea," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 87-112, March.
    10. Long W. Lam & Aichia Chuang & Chi-Sum Wong & Julie N. Y. Zhu, 2019. "A typology of three-way interaction models: Applications and suggestions for Asian management research," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 1-16, March.
    11. Fang Sun & Anqi Zheng & Junbang Lan, 2022. "Job Insecurity and Employees’ Taking Charge Behaviors: Testing a Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-13, January.
    12. Kai Chi Yam & Scott J. Reynolds & Pengcheng Zhang & Runkun Su, 2022. "The Unintended Consequences of Empowering Leadership: Increased Deviance for Some Followers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 683-700, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wei Sun & Ang Xu & Yufan Shang, 2014. "Transformational leadership, team climate, and team performance within the NPD team: Evidence from China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 127-147, March.
    2. Cristina López-Duarte & Marta M. Vidal-Suárez & Belén González-Díaz, 2018. "The early adulthood of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management: A literature review 2005–2014," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 313-345, June.
    3. Haeyoung Koo & Choelsoon Park, 2018. "Foundation of leadership in Asia: Leader characteristics and leadership styles review and research agenda," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 697-718, September.
    4. An‐Chih Wang & Yanyu Chen & Sheng‐Bin Wang & Yi‐Chieh Lin & Chuan‐Yu Tseng, 2023. "Actions Speak Louder than Words, Particularly in the East: How Taiwanese Followers Perceive Leaders’ Promotion of Ethical Actions Differently from Followers in the States," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 372-399, March.
    5. Yucheng Zhang & Yuyan Zheng & Long Zhang & Shan Xu & Xin Liu & Wansi Chen, 2021. "A meta-analytic review of the consequences of servant leadership: The moderating roles of cultural factors," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 371-400, March.
    6. Michael Carney, 2015. "Capacity building at the Asia Pacific Journal of Management," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 827-833, December.
    7. An-Chih Wang & Jack Ting-Ju Chiang & Wan-Ju Chou & Bor-Shiuan Cheng, 2017. "One definition, different manifestations: Investigating ethical leadership in the Chinese context," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 505-535, September.
    8. Alfred Wong & Lu Wei & Dean Tjosvold, 2014. "Business and regulators partnerships: Government transformational leadership for constructive conflict management," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 497-522, June.
    9. Long Lam & Xu Huang & Dora Lau, 2012. "Leadership research in Asia: Taking the road less traveled?," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 195-204, June.
    10. Shirley Daniel & Dongyoung Lee & Wolf Reitsperger, 2014. "Raising quality consciousness among Chinese manufacturing personnel: Testing the effectiveness of performance management tools," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 549-573, June.
    11. Han Ren & Zhengqiang Zhong & Charles Weizheng Chen & Chris Brewster, 2023. "Two-way in-/congruence in three components of paternalistic leadership and subordinate justice: the mediating role of perceptions of renqing," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 643-668, April.
    12. Bradley Koch & Pamela Koch, 2007. "Collectivism, individualism, and outgroup cooperation in a segmented China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 207-225, June.
    13. Hao-Chieh Lin & Trang Thi Ha Dang & Yu-Sheng Liu, 2016. "CEO transformational leadership and firm performance: A moderated mediation model of TMT trust climate and environmental dynamism," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 981-1008, December.
    14. Shihui Chen & Hanqing Chevy Fang & Niall G. MacKenzie & Sara Carter & Ling Chen & Bingde Wu, 2018. "Female leadership in contemporary Chinese family firms," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 181-211, March.
    15. Steele, Logan M. & Watts, Logan L., 2022. "Managing technical innovation: A systematic review of 11 leader functions," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    16. Yunyue Yang & Jie Li & Tomoki Sekiguchi, 0. "How supervisors respond to employee voice: an experimental study in China and Japan," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 0, pages 1-31.
    17. Jun Song & Jibao Gu & Jianlin Wu & Shuo Xu, 2019. "Differential promotive voice–prohibitive voice relationships with employee performance: Power distance orientation as a moderator," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 1053-1077, December.
    18. Sonja Franzke & Jie Wu & Fabian Jintae Froese & Zi Xuan Chan, 2022. "Female entrepreneurship in Asia: a critical review and future directions," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(3), pages 343-372, July.
    19. Anne S. Tsui & Claudia Bird Schoonhoven & Marshall W. Meyer & Chung-Ming Lau & George T. Milkovich, 2004. "Organization and Management in the Midst of Societal Transformation: The People's Republic of China," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 133-144, April.
    20. Dan V. Caprar & Sunghoon Kim & Benjamin W. Walker & Paula Caligiuri, 2022. "Beyond “Doing as the Romans Do”: A review of research on countercultural business practices," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(7), pages 1449-1483, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:32:y:2015:i:3:p:645-670. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.