TITLE:
Does Authorization Have to Be Omnipotent? The “Double-Edged Sword” Effect of Empowering Leadership on Employee’s Behavior
AUTHORS:
Xiaofang Ni
KEYWORDS:
Empowering Leadership, Challenge Stressors, Hindrance Stressors, Citizenship, Incivility
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.3,
March
9,
2020
ABSTRACT: There are
conflicting views about the consequence of empowering leadership. To further
explain the inconsistencies in existing studies, our study bases on the
cognitive appraisal theory of stress and the transactional model of stress,
discussing the indirect effect of employee’s stressor appraisal to empowering
leadership (as challenge stressors or hindrance stressors) between empowering
leadership and employee’s behaviors (citizenship and incivility), and the regulatory effect of employee’s proactive
personality. It reveals the double-edged sword effect of empowering
leadership. In our study, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 234
employees as samples and the collected data were statistically analyzed. The
results show that empowering leadership positively affects employees’ citizenship through the challenge stressors, and
positively affects employees’ incivility through the hindrance stressors. Moreover, the
relationship between empowering leadership and challenge stressors will be
stronger when employees’ proactive personality was high. And the relationship
between empowering leadership and hindrance stressors will be stronger when employees’ proactive personality was low.
Finally, implications for theory and research are provided.