责任型领导:概念变迁、理论视角及本土启示

Responsible Leadership: A Review of Concept Development, Theoretical Perspectives and Implications for Indigenous Research

随着社会、环境问题的日益严峻,责任型领导逐渐引起了学界的关注。观其发展历史,主要历经了关系视角、过程视角和行为视角的变迁,实证研究主要涉及道德认同、情境强度、社会交换、社会学习、社会认知、情感事件和资本理论等视角。未来研究既可从集体主义取向类型等视角进行本土探索,也可对以往西方研究视角进行检验或升级。

In light of the increasing societal and environmental problems, corporates and their leaders are expected to contribute to public welfares, such as public administration(health, education, and social security) and environmental protection. Accordingly, the concept of responsible leadership is proposed and highlighted, increasingly garnering incredible attention in recent years. Among a large number of studies on responsible leadership, many scholars posit that such leadership style can help corporates cope with the global challenges and maintain their competitive advantages. Considering the important role that responsible leadership plays in balancing economic and social benefits, the current research summarizes existing literature on responsible leadership with regard to definitions, measurements, and theories, while providing some suggestions for the future research.To date, researchers defined responsible leadership mainly in three perspectives, including relational perspective, procedural perspective, and behavioral perspective. Pless and Maak(2005) defined responsible leadership as a value-based leadership style that emphasized ethical principles driven relationship between leaders and stakeholders. Voegtlin(2011) understood responsible leadership as awareness and consideration of the consequences of a company’s actions for all stakeholders, as well as the exertion of influence by enabling the involvement of the affected stakeholders and by engaging in an active stakeholder dialogue. Besides, Stahl and de Luque(2014) classified responsible leadership into two types of socially responsible behavior: "doing good" and "avoiding harm." Doing good meant that leaders engaged in activities that were aimed at enhancing societal welfare(e.g., goes beyond minimum legal requirements to provide employment opportunities for disabled workers). Avoiding harm meant that leaders refrained from activities that had harmful consequences for others(e.g., strictly enforced safety regulations). In terms of measurements, Voegtlin(2011) and Doh et al.(2011) respectively explored the structure of responsible leadership and developed a scale to measure it. Such scales were supported with good reliability and validity.Additionally, this paper provides an overview of existing research on responsible leadership and summarizes seven theoretical perspectives for explaining the antecedents and consequences of responsible leadership. Moral identity and personality can predict the emergence of responsible leadership. However, through the lens of situational strength theory, big five personalities, cognition, moral philosophy and affective trait have a predictive effect on responsible leadership only when the strength of situational factors is low. The consequences of responsible leadership include attitudinal and behavioral outcomes at both the the individual and the organizational level. In terms of individual level outcomes, responsible leadership can shape followers’ job performance and ethical behaviors through affective events, social-exchange relationship, social learning mechanism and social cognition. In terms of organizational level outcomes, responsible leadership can contribute to the organizational performance and sustainable business through the accumulation of social capital and human capital.Future research can exert efforts to explore the features of responsible leadership in the Chinese context and to explore the antecedents of responsible leadership from the perspective of collectivism orientation. Besides, future research should integrate and distinguish the multi-pathways linking responsible leadership to work outcomes. For example, whether the social-information induced cognitive pathway explains more variance in the mediating effect of responsible leadership on work outcomes than an affective-event driven emotional pathway.