Leader humility and employee organizational deviance: the role of sense of power and organizational identification

Abstract

PurposeThe authors examined the relationship between leader humility and employee organizational deviance. They also tested the mediating effects of personal sense of power and the moderating effects of organizational identification on this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested their hypotheses using a sample of 186 employees from an information technology (IT) enterprise in China. They used hierarchical regression and bootstrapping analyses to test for direct and indirect relationships.FindingsSense of power mediated the effect of leader humility on organizational deviance and organizational identification moderated the effect of sense of power on organizational deviance. In addition, organizational identification mediated the indirect effect of leader humility on organizational deviance via sense of power. Thus, employees who demonstrate high organizational identification may not conduct organizational deviant behavior, even if they have a high sense of power.Practical implicationsOrganizations should explore and practice effective leader humility. Selection and training programs should be developed to choose humble leaders and teach them how to exhibit moderate humility.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the literature by revealing the negative effects of leader humility in Chinese culture. They find support for their hypotheses that employee sense of power mediates the relationship between leader humility and employee organizational deviance and that this relationship is weaker when employee organizational identification is higher. This clarifies how and why leader humility stimulates employee organizational deviance.

Can Islamic work ethics encourage knowledge-sharing behaviors? The role of job embeddedness and organizational identification

“…For example, Abbasi et al (2020) used SIT to explain the moderating role of organizational identification in the relationship between high-performance work systems and psychological empowerment. Other studies have suggested that organizational identification moderates the relationship between high-performance human resource practices and volunteer engagement (Traeger and Alfes, 2019), compulsory citizenship behaviors (CCB) and their impact on employee silence (He et al, 2018), reducing the effect of the sense of empowerment on deviant behaviors (Qiuyun et al, 2020). Thus, in this study, organizational identification was used as the moderating variable to examine the influence of IWEs on knowledge-sharing behaviors and the following hypotheses were proposed: JIABR 12,8…”

“…A large body of empirical evidence suggests that the relationship between the work environment, organizational factors and workplace behaviors is moderated by organizational identification (Abbasi et al, 2020;Agarwal and Farndale, 2017;He et al, 2018;Qiuyun et al, 2020;Traeger and Alfes, 2019). For example, Abbasi et al (2020) used SIT to explain the moderating role of organizational identification in the relationship between high-performance work systems and psychological empowerment.…”

“…Drawing on SET and social identity theories (SITs), this study provides new insights by explaining the psychological mechanism underlying the relationship between IWEs and knowledge-sharing behaviors via job embeddedness and the moderating role of organizational identification. Although a large body of empirical evidence suggests that the relationship between the work environment and workplace behaviors is moderated by organizational identification (Abbasi et al, 2020;Agarwal and Farndale, 2017;He et al, 2018;Qiuyun et al, 2020;Traeger and Alfes, 2019), little is known about how the presence of IWEs affects knowledge sharing and how this influence varies according to various levels of organizational identification. Hence, when employees possess higher organizational identification, they are likely to share knowledge with their colleagues.…”

Perceived organizational injustice and counterproductive work behaviours: mediated by organizational identification, moderated by discretionary human resource practices

“…Such diminished organizational identification in turn may steer employees towards counterproductive work behaviours [1]. Deviant work activities represent pertinent behavioural responses, through which employees with negative feelings about their organization can unleash these feelings (Al-Atwi and Bakir, 2014;Qiuyun et al, 2020). In particular, limited identification with their organization may spur deviant work activities as a means to express disappointment about this missing psychological connection (Ciampa et al, 2019;Erkutlu and Chafra, 2018;Penney and Spector, 2005).…”

Servant leadership and organizational deviant behaviour: interpreting some contradictory results from public sector of Pakistan

“…Second, prior research argues that organizational deviance is more harmful for organizational health, progress and prosperity (e.g. Javed et al , 2019; Qiuyun et al , 2020).…”