利用式领导会降低员工工作幸福感吗?——基于工作要求—资源模型的解释

Will Exploitative Leadership Reduce Employee Job Well-being?An Explanation from the Job Demands-Resources Model

近年来,商业丑闻揭露出一种新型负面领导——利用式领导,即领导者把员工当作谋利工具,操控员工以满足一己私利。以往研究揭示了利用式领导对员工态度与行为的负面影响,尽管如此,该领导方式与员工工作幸福感的关系还缺乏全面探索。鉴于此,本研究以工作要求—资源模型为视角,检验了利用式领导对员工工作幸福感的消极影响以及自我效能感的缓冲作用。本研究基于218份多时点问卷调查数据,通过回归分析发现:(1)利用式领导会增加员工的工作要求,继而降低员工的工作幸福感;(2)利用式领导会削减员工的工作资源,继而降低员工的工作幸福感;(3)员工自我效能感能够削弱工作要求、工作资源与工作幸福感之间的关系,同时也能够削弱利用式领导通过高工作要求、低工作资源对员工工作幸福感的负面影响。理论上,本研究识别了利用式领导对工作幸福感的损害效应及其作用机制;实践上,本研究能够启发管理者通过领导方式变革(软策略)与工作再设计(硬策略)改善员工工作幸福感。

Recent business scandals indicate a new type of negative leadership termed exploitative leadership,which is essentially self-interested and treats followers as a means to self-serving ends.Previous studies have revealed that exploitative leadership has a series of negative impacts on employees,such as reducing employees'organizational commitment and increasing employees'psychological distress and deviant behaviors.However,it remains unexplored whether employee job well-being would be affected by exploitative leadership.We focus on whether and how exploitative leadership affects employee job well-being.We conduct a three-wave survey study and obtain data from 218 employees of Internet companies in China.Based on the multi-wave data,we conduct path analyses to test our hypotheses.The results show that exploitative leadership increases employee perception of job demands and decreases employee perception of job resources,which,in turn,reduces employee job well-being.Based on the bootstrapping method,the mediating roles of job demands and job resources are supported.In addition,employee self-efficacy buffers the negative relationship between job demands and employee job wellbeing and the positive relationship between job resources and employee job well-being.Finally,using the moderated path analysis approach,our hypothesized moderated mediation models show that employee self-efficacy weakens the negative indirect impact of exploitative leadership on employee job well-being via increased job demands and decreased job resources.This study has several implications for theory and practice:Firstly,it identifies job well-being as an important yet overlooked consequence of exploitative leadership,which can deepen our understanding of the harmful scope of exploitative leadership.Secondly,it reveals that increased job demands and decreased job resources are two key paths through which exploitative leaders affect employee job wellbeing.Thirdly,it reveals the boundary of the relationship between job characteristics(i.e.,demands and resources)and employee job well-being.Practically,given the destructive impact of exploitative leadership on employee job well-being,this study suggests that organizations should try to prevent or avoid exploitative leadership behavior by using some rewards,punishments,or training methods.Moreover,the impact of exploitative leaders on employee job well-being can be alleviated by improving self-efficacy.