TY - JOUR
T1 - Discipline vs. dominance
T2 - The relationships between different types of authoritarian leadership and employee self-interested voice
AU - Lou, Ming
AU - Zhao, Honglei
AU - Ma, Chao
AU - Zhang, Li
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/11/4
Y1 - 2023/11/4
N2 - Discipline-focused and dominance-focused authoritarian leadership are two different types of authoritarian leadership. While the detrimental effects of authoritarian leadership on employees’ organizational-focused voice have been established in the literature, we have yet to understand the relationships between different types of authoritarian leadership and employees’ self-interested voice. Drawing on uncertainty management theory, this research argues that discipline-focused authoritarian leadership will be negatively related to employees’ self-interested voice via decreased work alienation, whereas dominance-focused authoritarian leadership will be positively related to employees’ self-interested voice via increased work alienation. We also predict that employees’ perceived overqualification will moderate the relations between different types of authoritarian leadership and work alienation. We collected two-wave data from 495 employees and their direct supervisors. Our findings suggest that work alienation mediated the negative relationship between discipline-focused authoritarian leadership and self-interested voice. In contrast, work alienation mediated the positive relationship between dominance-focused authoritarian leadership and self-interested voice. Additionally, the positive relationship between dominance-focused authoritarian leadership and work alienation was enhanced for employees high in perceived overqualification. Our findings suggest managers display more discipline-focused authoritarian leadership than dominance-focused authoritarian leadership to reduce employees’ work deviation and self-interested voice.
AB - Discipline-focused and dominance-focused authoritarian leadership are two different types of authoritarian leadership. While the detrimental effects of authoritarian leadership on employees’ organizational-focused voice have been established in the literature, we have yet to understand the relationships between different types of authoritarian leadership and employees’ self-interested voice. Drawing on uncertainty management theory, this research argues that discipline-focused authoritarian leadership will be negatively related to employees’ self-interested voice via decreased work alienation, whereas dominance-focused authoritarian leadership will be positively related to employees’ self-interested voice via increased work alienation. We also predict that employees’ perceived overqualification will moderate the relations between different types of authoritarian leadership and work alienation. We collected two-wave data from 495 employees and their direct supervisors. Our findings suggest that work alienation mediated the negative relationship between discipline-focused authoritarian leadership and self-interested voice. In contrast, work alienation mediated the positive relationship between dominance-focused authoritarian leadership and self-interested voice. Additionally, the positive relationship between dominance-focused authoritarian leadership and work alienation was enhanced for employees high in perceived overqualification. Our findings suggest managers display more discipline-focused authoritarian leadership than dominance-focused authoritarian leadership to reduce employees’ work deviation and self-interested voice.
KW - Authoritarian leadership
KW - Perceived overqualification
KW - Self-interested voice
KW - Work alienation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141365340&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12144-022-03812-6
DO - 10.1007/s12144-022-03812-6
M3 - Article
SN - 1046-1310
VL - 42
SP - 27927
EP - 27941
JO - Current Psychology
JF - Current Psychology
IS - 32
ER -