Paternalistic leadership (PL) is the prevalent leadership style in Chinese business organizations. With an approach similar to patriarchy, PL entails an evident and powerful authority that shows consideration for subordinates with moral leadership. Although PL is widespread in Chinese business organizations, very few studies have focused on this leadership style and those that have were simply conceptual analyses and not empirical studies. We sampled 543 subordinates from local businesses in Taiwan to investigate PL, Western transformational leadership, and subordinate responses to these two leadership styles. Our hypotheses were as follows: (1) PL has a significant and unique effect on subordinate responses compared to Western transformational leadership; (2) there exists an interaction between the three elements of PL (benevolence, morality, and authoritarianism) and subordinate responses; and (3) the authority orientation of a subordinate's traditionality has a moderating effect upon the relation between PL and subordinate responses. Statistical analyses generally supported these hypotheses. Directions for follow‐up studies are offered and implications for leadership theory and practice are discussed.

The authors examined the relationship between subordinates' core self-evaluations and supervisors' abusive supervision. Furthermore, they examined whether subordinates' perceived coworker support and subordinates' susceptibility to emotional contagion moderated the relationship between supervisors' abusive supervision and subordinates' emotional exhaustion. They analyzed data from 290 subordinates who had immediate supervisors using hierarchal multiple regression. Results show that core self-evaluations were negatively related to abusive supervision, whereas abusive supervision was positively related to emotional exhaustion. Both perceived coworker support and susceptibility to emotional contagion moderated the relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion. It is surprising that the moderating effect of perceived coworker support showed an unexpected pattern such that a stronger relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion existed when coworker social support was high. The authors conclude with a discussion of these findings.

SummaryThis study aims to provide new insights into the reward-creativity link in the Chinese context by exploring the moderating effect of guanxi human resource management (HRM) practice-reflecting the extent to which HR decisions are influenced by personal relationships in an organization-on the relationship between pay for performance (PFP) and employee creativity. Using two independent samples that were composed of 222 and 216 supervisor-subordinate dyads from Mainland China and Taiwan, we found that the effect of pay for performance on creativity was invariantly moderated by perceived guanxi HRM practice in such a way that when guanxi HRM practice was low, PFP had stronger positive effects on creativity. Furthermore, trust in management, as reduced by guanxi HRM practice, mediated this moderating effect. Moreover, moderated path analysis revealed that intrinsic motivation mediated these moderated relationships among PFP, guanxi HRM practice, trust in management, and creativity. Findings shed light on the processes through which, and the conditions under which, PFP may promote creativity.

Summary We surveyed full‐time employees of ongoing mentoring relationships to investigate relationships among mentors' perceived organizational support (POS), the extent of mentoring functions protégés received, and protégés' POS. Moreover, we examined the moderating role of mentors' altruistic personality in the relationship between mentors' POS and mentoring functions received. Results showed that mentors' POS was positively related to the extent of mentoring protégés reported receiving, which was then related positively to protégés' POS. Furthermore, the extent of mentoring received partially mediated the relationship between mentors' POS and protégés' POS. We also found that mentors' altruistic personality moderated the positive relationship between mentors' POS and the extent of mentoring received such that this relationship was stronger for low altruistic mentors. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We investigated the differential relationships between abusive supervision and two emotional labor strategies used by subordinates (surface acting and deep acting). Furthermore, we examined whether subordinates' openness personality moderated the above relationships. Using the questionnaire survey method, we collected data from 210 employees in China. The results of hierarchical regression showed that abusive supervision related positively to surface acting (regulating facial expression) but negatively to deep acting (regulating inner feeling). Openness personality moderated the relationships between abusive supervision and the two emotional labor strategies, such that the relationships were stronger for employees with lower openness. Findings of our study contribute to the literature on workplace emotions and negative leadership.