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Purpose China after 1949, especially since entering the 21st century, significant progress has been made in leadership research under Chinese context. However, so far there has been no systematic review and prospect of China's leadership research in the past 70 years. Therefore, with the help of scientific visualization software Citespace, this paper analyzes the research papers on leadership in the context of China from the top international journals of management science and applied psychology (1949–2018), supplemented and verified the previous research conclusions based on qualitative review, and quantitatively demonstrated the research evolution of leadership field. Design Methodology Approach Using a scientific visualization tool CiteSpace and 145 international leadership works, which were published in 64 top international journals and collected from the Web of Science database, and 852 domestic works which were published in 28 top domestic journals and collected from the CNKI database from 1949 to 2018, we draws keyword co-occurrence knowledge graph and keyword strategy map to visualize the landscape and evolution of leadership research and analyze the hot topics and research trends in the field of leadership. Findings The research found that: (1) Before 2002, there were only 7 articles published in 64 international top journal, mainly focusing on Western leadership theories such as transformational, cross-cultural comparison and the adaptability in Chinese context; (2) From 2003 to 2012, scholars had begun to introduce mainstream quantitative research paradigm in international academic community; (3) From 2013 to 2018, researches tended to be synchronized, with 461 and 99 papers published respectively. How emerging leaderships (such as ethical leadership) affect on various emerging outcome variables (such as creativity, voice behavior, unethical pro-organizational behavior etc.) is hot topic for future research. Originality Value Different from the previous qualitative reviews on organizational culture research, this paper, for the first time, uses bibliometric research methods to systematically analyze the evolution path of leadership research during the 70 years of China(1949–2018, and puts forward the future research prospects.

Purpose Managerial coaching has been popularized as a way of motivating, developing and retaining employees in organizations. Yet, there has been a lack of empirical studies to examine the linkage between managerial coaching and its potential impact on employees. This study aims to investigate the interrelationships among managerial coaching, employees’ personal learning and organizational commitment. This study also attempts to revise an existing instrument for measuring coaching skills in organizations created by McLean et al. (2005) to assess managers’ coaching skills. Design/methodology/approach Data analyzes were based on 187 employees of a top global technology organization headquartered in the USA. The existing instrument for measuring coaching skills was revised and confirmed through a series of efforts including expert reviews, pilot tests and assessing its reliability and validity. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among managerial coaching skills and employees’ personal learning and organizational commitment. Findings This study identified five dimensions of managerial coaching skills and validated the revised instrument measuring coaching skills in organizations. It also demonstrated that managers’ utilization of managerial coaching skills had a direct effect on employees’ learning and organizational commitment and impacted employees’ organizational commitment through personal learning. Originality/value This study examined the interrelationships among managerial coaching and employees’ personal learning and organizational commitment in organizations. In doing so, this study unveiled the process of how managers’ coaching affects employees’ development and attitudes at work. This study also identified five coaching skills as a tool to assess the level of managerial coaching.

The study explores how gender affects the relationships linking work-to-family conflict to job and life satisfaction among dual-earner spouses. Data were collected from 157 paired Chinese managers ...

The purpose of this article is to investigate how and when leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation influences employees’ voice behavior by examining trust as a psychological process and two types of leader power as opposite moderators. Based on a sample of 61 teams from an energy corporation in China, we tested a moderated mediation model using multilevel structural equation modeling. The results show that LMX differentiation is negatively related to employees’ trust in leaders and, in turn, reduces employees’ voice behavior. Moreover, leader reward power negatively moderates the influence of LMX differentiation on employees’ trust in leaders such that the relationship is stronger when leader reward power is low but not significant when leader reward power is high. Leader coercive power positively moderates the relationship such that it is stronger when leader coercive power is high but not significant when leader coercive power is low. Furthermore, these two types of power moderate the indirect relationship between LMX differentiation and employees’ voice via their trust in leaders. This study is the first to unpack the mechanism that links LMX differentiation and voice behavior and the conditions under which LMX differentiation can exert influence. This study delineates a resource-based process with conservation of resources theory through which employees appraise the social stressor (LMX differentiation), perceive the value of future resource investment (trust), strategically respond to resource signals (leader power), and finally make resource investment decisions (voice behavior).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between CEO narcissism and strategic decision-making (SDM) processes (decision comprehensiveness and decision speed), and to explore the mediating role of top management team (TMT) members’ participation in decision making and the moderating role of TMT power distance. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 103 CEOs and their corresponding TMT members in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings The results indicated that CEO narcissism was negatively related to decision comprehensiveness and positively related to decision speed. These relationships were mediated by TMT members’ participation in decision making, especially when TMT power distance was high. Practical implications The results show the potential negative effects of CEOs’ narcissistic personality and suggest ways to attenuate it by increasing TMT participation and decreasing TMT power distance. Originality/value This study is an initial attempt to empirically examine how and under what conditions CEOs’ narcissism is a barrier to more comprehensive and more deliberate (slower) SDM.

Endorsing employee voice is one thing; implementation of endorsed ideas is another. Although organizational research has paid increasing attention to examining managers’ psychological endorsement of employee voice, the factors that can affect managers’ actual implementation of endorsed employee voice remain unclear. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, we develop a conceptual model of managerial voice implementation and conceptualize it as a manager’s planned behavior that is affected by the manager’s motivation, felt obligation, and perceived control in relation to implementation. We further apply social network approaches to explain how social network characteristics across multiple levels in the team (i.e. dyadic ties, network centrality, and network closure) can facilitate the manager’s psychological impetus for voice implementation – transforming endorsed voice into managerial practices in the workplace. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this manager-centric and social network-based framework of managerial voice implementation.

Abstract. The literature shows that task conflict plays an important role in the team operation process, but little is known about who exhibits greater creativity when in conflict, leading the team toward greater creativity. To enhance understanding of employee creativity, this study proposed that task conflict has a curvilinear relationship with employee creativity and that employees’ growth need strength moderates the relationship. A cross-level investigation of employee creativity within 59 groups of employees from multiple Chinese companies was conducted. The results showed that task conflict has an inverted U-shaped relationship with employee creativity. Growth need strength was found to have a moderating effect on the relation between task conflict and employee creativity. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Abstract. This study uses implicit voice theory to examine the influence of employees’ critical thinking and leaders’ inspirational motivation on employees’ voice behavior via voice efficacy. The results of a pretest of 302 employees using critical thinking questionnaires and a field study of 273 dyads of supervisors and their subordinates revealed that both employees’ critical thinking and leaders’ inspirational motivation had a positive effect on employees’ voice and that voice efficacy mediates the relationships among employees’ critical thinking, leaders’ inspirational motivation, and employees’ voice. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensionality of intragroup conflict and to develop an instrument with acceptable psychometric properties for the comprehensive measurement of conflict.Design/methodology/approachThis paper strictly follows the standard scale-developing method: first, establish theoretical dimensions of intragroup conflict; then, develop the initial scale through in-depth interviews and coding schemes; third, revise and verify the scale through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis; and, finally, examine the predictive validity of the new intragroup conflict scale.FindingsThis study identifies four dimensions of intragroup conflict – cognitive conflict, affective conflict, behavioral conflict, and interest-based conflict – and provides evidence of construct validity for a new measure. The results show that cognitive and interest-based conflict affect group innovation performance positively, whereas affective and behavioral conflict affects it negatively.Originality/valueThis study first detects interest-based conflict as a new dimension and explores a more comprehensive scale (ABCI) that reflects all the connotations of conflict, which deepens the understanding of intragroup conflict, laying a solid foundation for empirical studies of conflict.

Drawing on the component model of creativity, we test the processes through which leader critical thinking might influence team creativity and the boundary conditions. We argue that two team proces...

We investigated how an individual's perception of interactional injustice interacts with a target's position power in determining that individual's decision to use hard influence tactics, and if this choice is influenced by the cultural factor of power distance. Our hypothesis was that China's high-power-distance culture, in which a target is in a position in which he or she possesses a high degree of power, would deter mistreated individuals from using hard influence tactics as retaliation, whereas in the USA, where high power distance is less common, positional power would not have this effect. Participants were 415 and 311 managers, respectively, in China and the USA. Our results supported the hypotheses, suggesting that the cultural factor of power distance is a deciding factor in people's consideration of whether or not to use hard influence tactics in reaction to the mistreatment from targets who hold a high degree of position power.

The present study examines whether and why leaders’ transparent behavior influences employee creativity. Field survey data from 51 teams and 199 employees in a large IT company located in China showed that both psychological safety and ability to focus attention mediated the positive relationship between leaders’ transparent behavior and employee creativity. Furthermore, leaders’ transparent behavior was found to be positively related to employee psychological safety, which in turn affected employee ability to focus attention and creativity. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the forces driving organizational innovation, particularly CEO transformational leadership as it affects external and internal social capital in top management teams. Design/methodology/approach Survey questionnaires were administered to 90 Chinese top management teams. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings Both internal and external social capital mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. Practical implications Organizations should strengthen internal and external capital of top management teams to reap maximal innovation outcomes from transformational leadership. Originality/value The findings contribute to the transformational leadership, social capital, and innovation literature first by showing how leadership influences innovation through largely neglected mechanisms – internal and external social capital. Second, a social capital focus challenges the tacit assumption that transformational leadership has only internal influences by showing that it potentially spills over to the external domain.

Based on the social identity theory, this study examined the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employees’ service performance in the hospitality industry. Data were collected from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 72 leaders and 556 employees in eight full-service hotels in China. Using hierarchical linear modeling, paradoxical leadership was found to be positively related to employees’ leader identification, which consequently enhanced their service performance. Furthermore, the level of an employee’s need for cognitive closure moderated the relationship between paradoxical leadership and leader identification such that paradoxical leadership exerted a stronger positive influence on leader identification for those employees with a lower need for cognitive closure. These findings have implications for both paradoxical leadership and hospitality management practices.

Although many researches recognize the role of team expertise diversity in providing different ideas, it remains unclear how and under which conditions these various ideas are elaborated and integrated to fuel team innovation. To address this question, we develop a model theorizing that paradoxical leadership helps diverse teams overcome the differentiating-integrating paradox to promote innovation. Moreover, we further theorize that paradoxical leadership will cultivate perspective taking among team members. Analyses of the multi-time and multi-source data from 98 teams suggest that teams with expertise diversity exhibit better innovative performance when paradoxical leadership is prevalent. Furthermore, team perspective taking mediates the positive moderating effects of paradoxical leadership on the relationship between expertise diversity and innovative performance. Through these analyses, this study not only addresses the innovation paradox of expertise diverse teams from the perspective of leader influence, but also enriches the understanding of the effects of paradoxical leadership.

Although substantial knowledge regarding the antecedents and outcomes of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation has been accumulated, numerous questions related to this topic remain underexplored. To enhance the understanding of LMX differentiation and team-focused outcomes, this study proposed that LMX differentiation has a curvilinear relationship with team creativity and that team LMX quality (represented by the LMX median in this study) moderates the association between these two variables. An investigation based on 59 teams from multiple Chinese companies was conducted. The results indicated that LMX differentiation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity, and LMX median moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship. Specifically, for teams with a low LMX median, the curvilinear relationship is stronger, whereas for teams with a high LMX median, the slope of the curve becomes nearly flat, thus losing the inverted-U effect. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and directions for future research are outlined.

In this article, we propose that types of CEO paternalistic leadership will affect the effectiveness of top management team (TMT) decisions, and that team conflict will play a mediating role in the relationship between CEO paternalistic leadership and decision effectiveness in the Chinese context. Data collected from 108 TMTs in China suggest that dimensions of paternalistic leadership significantly affect decision effectiveness: benevolent and moral leadership positively affect TMT decision effectiveness, but authoritarian leadership has negative effects on TMT decision effectiveness. In addition, cognitive and affective team conflicts partially mediate the links between paternalistic leadership types and decision effectiveness. The results suggest that CEO paternalistic leadership approaches and conflict modes significantly determine TMT decision effectiveness.

We examined the contingent value of individuals' critical thinking on their creativity at work by focusing on the generation of, process of, and solutions found, in developing novel and useful ideas. To extend previous research emphasizing individual characteristics, such as personality traits, we focused on the value of individuals' critical thinking and its impact on creativity. In the pretest, 442 employees completed a critical thinking questionnaire and then, in a field study, 211 dyads of managers and their subordinates completed the validated questionnaire. Results revealed a positive relationship between critical thinking and employee creativity, and creative process engagement completely mediated this relationship. Further, leader–member exchange was found to weaken the relationship between critical thinking and creative process engagement. Implications of the study for practice are discussed.

As more millennial employees, who have been labelled as ‘post-1980s’ and ‘post-1990s’, enter adult life and become an increasing dominant share of the workforce, their values, perspectives, attitud...

Drawing on the research of “innovation ambidexterity,” this study elaborates the complementary effects between team cognitive compositions and leader management control to reconcile the creation–im...

Based on the leader trait process model, this study explored the impact of CEO narcissism on strategic decision-making quality, specifically, decision comprehensiveness and decision speed. Results ...

Empirical evidence has accumulated showing that managerial coaching behavior has important effects on subordinatesi¯ work attitudes. However, knowledge of how such behavior impacts supervisors who ...

Based on upper echelon theory and social identity theory of leadership, the current research examined how and under what condition CEO workaholism influenced organizational performance. Specificall...

Based on the theory of i°person‒environment (P-E) complementary fit,i± this study develops a complementary perspective that emphasizes the need for the integration of divergence and convergence in ...

work-to-family conflict, gender, gender role orientation, crossover effect, family accomplishment

This study examines the influence of employees’ critical thinking on voice behavior, the mediating role of voice efficacy, and the moderating role of inspirational motivation. Based on a pretest of...

In this study, we explore the theoretical content and structural dimensions of innovative leadership in organizations. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that innovative leade...