How Does Relative Leader-Member Exchange Influence Employee Proactive Behavior? The Roles of Pride, Shame, and Internal Attribution Tendency

Abstract

The relative leader-member exchange (RLMX) relationship is a subjective perception of the relative status under the team background after comparing the individual leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship with others in the group. This study drew on attribution theory and affective events theory and investigated the influence mechanism of relative leader-member exchange (RLMX) on employee proactive behavior via employees' different emotions. Moreover, we examined the moderating effect of employees' internal attribution tendency. We collected data from 377 employees at 2 points in time to obtain the hierarchical regression results. The results concluded that individual RLMX positively related to employee proactive behavior, and both pride and shame mediated the positive relationship. Furthermore, it was found that RLMX had a stronger indirect effect on employee proactive behavior via pride when the internal attribution tendency was higher (vs. lower), while the relationship via shame was stronger when the internal attribution tendency was lower (vs. higher).