Chenwei Liao | Michigan State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Chenwei Liao

Research paper thumbnail of Does Manager Servant Leadership Lead to Follower Serving Behaviors? It Depends on Follower Self-Interest

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2020

One distinguishing feature of servant leadership is the proposition that servant leaders develop ... more One distinguishing feature of servant leadership is the proposition that servant leaders develop followers who also engage in serving behaviors. Drawing upon social learning theory, we argue that follower dispositional self-interest is a boundary condition affecting the transference of manager servant leadership to follower engagement in serving behaviors, and that follower serving self-efficacy is the underlying psychological mechanism. In a laboratory experiment (Study 1), we manipulated manager servant leadership and found support for the hypothesis that the positive relationship between manager servant leadership and follower serving behaviors is significantly enhanced for participants high in self-interest. The serving behaviors of participants low in self-interest was not affected by the degree to which the manager practiced servant leadership. In a field study (Study 2) with a sample representing 10 diverse organizations in Singapore, we replicated the findings. In another laboratory experiment (Study 3), we demonstrated that follower serving self-efficacy mediated the interactional effect found in the first two studies, supporting the social learning account for the transference of manager servant leadership to follower serving behaviors. Taken together, converging results from these three studies demonstrate that servant leaders are capable of bringing out serving behaviors especially among followers with a strong focus on their own self-interest.

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Research paper thumbnail of I-Deals: A Competence Development Strategy Servant Leaders Employ to Manage Individuals and Groups

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Servant Leadership Scale-7

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2015

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Research paper thumbnail of Antecedents of Voice Behavior: A Meta- Analytic Review

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

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Research paper thumbnail of Serving You Depletes Me? A Leader-Centric Examination of Servant Leadership Behaviors

Journal of Management, 2020

Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ra... more Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ramifications for their subsequent behavior (McClean, Barnes, Courtright, & Johnson, 2019). Taking such a dynamic perspective on leader behaviors, we examined daily servant leadership behavior and its downstream effects on the leaders themselves from a within-person self-regulation perspective. Results from two experience sampling studies consistently revealed that engaging in daily servant leadership behavior can come at a cost for the leaders. Specifically, for leaders who are low in perspective taking, engaging in servant leadership behavior was associated with increases in same-day depletion and next-day withdrawal from their leadership role (i.e., greater laissez-faire behavior). However, for leaders who frequently exercise perspective taking, engaging in daily servant leadership behavior was instead associated with decreases in depletion and subsequent laissez-faire behavior, suggesting that servant leadership behaviors are replenishing for these individuals. Experience in perspective taking is therefore a key individual difference that determines whether enacting servant leadership behavior is beneficial or detrimental for leaders. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide avenues for future leadership research.

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Research paper thumbnail of Just What You Need: the Complementary Effect of Leader Proactive Personality and Team Need for Approval

Journal of Business and Psychology, 2019

Drawing from the performance requirement matching perspective of leadership effectiveness (Zaccar... more Drawing from the performance requirement matching perspective of leadership effectiveness (Zaccaro, Green, Dubrow, & Kolze, 2018), the current study investigates how leader proactive personality and team need for approval interactively relate to team commitment and subsequent team performance. We hypothesize that the positive effect of leader proactive personality on team commitment is strengthened when teams have high need for approval. Further, we expect team commitment to transmit the interactive effect between leader proactive personality and team need for approval on team performance. Survey data collected from 80 team leaders and 395 members supported the proposed mediated moderation model. Specifically, in teams with high need for approval, leader proactive personality positively predicted team commitment, which subsequently predicted team performance. In contrast, in teams with low need for approval, leader proactive personality had nonsignificant relationship with team commitment. Overall, the current findings highlight the theoretical importance of understanding leader-team complemen-tarity and underscore the need to recognize team need for approval composition as a context that bounds the influence of leader proactivity. The present study also offers actionable input for team selection and assessment.

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Research paper thumbnail of Leadership in virtual teams: A multilevel perspective

Understanding leadership functioning in virtual teams becomes critical as organizations increasin... more Understanding leadership functioning in virtual teams becomes critical as organizations increasingly use dispersed teams for talent acquisition. In the current article I present a preliminary model that explicates how task- and relationship-oriented leader behaviors influence team and individual processes and outcomes in virtual teams. Further, I discuss cross-level relationships between virtual team and individual processes, as well as the boundary effects of contextual factors (i.e., task complexity, task interdependence, and virtuality) in virtual leadership functioning.

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Research paper thumbnail of Idiosyncratic deals and individual effectiveness: The moderating role of leader-member exchange differentiation

Extending prior research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), in the current study we examine the fu... more Extending prior research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), in the current study we examine the functioning of i-deals in the context of leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation. To that end, we integrate justice, social exchange, and social comparison theories and hypothesize that employee perceptions of their managers' procedural fairness and LMX quality partially mediate (in sequence) the positive relationship between i-deals and individual effectiveness, including job satisfaction, in-role performance, and helping behavior. Furthermore, we propose that LMX differentiation moderates this mediated relationship, such that the mediation effect becomes stronger when LMX differentiation within the group is greater. Data from a U.S. sample of 961 employees and their managers in 71 restaurants supported our hypothesized model. Results shed light on managerial practices regarding how to gain positive effects from i-deals by considering the influence of LMX differentiation.

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Research paper thumbnail of Idiosyncratic deals in contemporary organizations: A qualitative and meta-analytical review

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) research focuses on the emergence of customized work arrangements e... more Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) research focuses on the emergence of customized work arrangements employees negotiate with their employers. This article provides a critical review and synthesis of i-deals research, combining a qualitative review of i-deals theory and research with a supplementary meta-analysis of 23 empirical studies (k = 27 samples, N= 8110 individuals). The qualitative review examines the conceptualization and measurement of i-deals and identifies patterns and gaps in i-deals research, while the quantitative metaanalysis tests the moderating effect of societal cultures on the predictors and consequences of ideals investigated to date. In each section, attention is given to strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to i-deals theory and research. Future research directions are identified with particular emphasis on the largely unexamined role of i-deals from a multilevel perspective.

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Research paper thumbnail of Does liking explain variance above and beyond LMX? A meta-analysis

Although liking or affect was a central construct during the 1980's and 1990's in supervisor-subo... more Although liking or affect was a central construct during the 1980's and 1990's in supervisor-subordinate dyadic research, a review of the literature suggests that since the turn of the century leader-member exchange (LMX) has emerged as the primary construct to assess relational quality. A question exists whether liking, as a reflection of interpersonal attraction, should continue to be included in organization research that focuses on dyadic relations and whether liking is redundant to LMX. To answer this question, we examined the incremental validity and construct redundancy of liking in relation to LMX based onmeta-analyses. Results indicated that liking and LMX have similar patterns with common correlateswith respect to effect sizes and significance. Moderator analysis revealed that reporting source of liking and LMX result in significantly higher correlations with antecedent and outcome variables when common reporting source data is used. Incremental variance analysis results demonstrated that liking can potentially explain additional variance over LMX for consequences. Overall, our results suggest that liking is an important and distinct construct that facilitates the development of LMX and therefore should not be abandoned in organizational research that examine supervisor-subordinate relational quality.

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Research paper thumbnail of Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance

In a sample of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants of a moderately sized restaurant chain, we... more In a sample of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants of a moderately sized restaurant chain, we investigated a key tenet of servant leadership theory—that servant leaders guide followers to emulate the leader’s behavior by prioritizing the needs of others above their own. We developed and tested a model contending that servant leaders propagate servant leadership behaviors among followers by creating a serving culture, which directly influences unit (i.e., restaurant/store) performance and enhances individual attitudes and behaviors directly and through the mediating influence of individuals’ identification with the unit. As hypothesized, serving culture was positively related both to restaurant performance and employee job performance, creativity, and customer service behaviors, and negatively related to turnover intentions, both directly and through employee identification with the restaurant. Same-source common method bias was reduced by employing five sources of data: employees, restaurant managers, customers, internal audits by headquarters staff, and external audits by a consulting firm.

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Research paper thumbnail of Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28

Although research on servant leadership has been expanding over the past several years, a concise... more Although research on servant leadership has been expanding over the past several years, a concise, valid scale for assessing global servant leadership has been lacking. In the current investigation a 7-item measure of global servant leadership (SL-7), based on Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson's (2008) 28-item servant leadership measure (SL-28), is introduced. Psychometric properties of the SL-7 were assessed at the individual level with data collected from 729 undergraduate students, 218 graduate students, and 552 leader–follower dyads from 11 organizations, and at the team level with a study consisting of a total of 71 ongoing intact work teams. Results across three independent studies with six samples showed correlations between the SL-7 and SL-28 scales ranging from .78 to .97, internal consistency reliabilities over .80 in all samples, and significant criterion-related validities for the SL-7 that parallel those found with the SL-28.

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Research paper thumbnail of Does Manager Servant Leadership Lead to Follower Serving Behaviors? It Depends on Follower Self-Interest

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2020

One distinguishing feature of servant leadership is the proposition that servant leaders develop ... more One distinguishing feature of servant leadership is the proposition that servant leaders develop followers who also engage in serving behaviors. Drawing upon social learning theory, we argue that follower dispositional self-interest is a boundary condition affecting the transference of manager servant leadership to follower engagement in serving behaviors, and that follower serving self-efficacy is the underlying psychological mechanism. In a laboratory experiment (Study 1), we manipulated manager servant leadership and found support for the hypothesis that the positive relationship between manager servant leadership and follower serving behaviors is significantly enhanced for participants high in self-interest. The serving behaviors of participants low in self-interest was not affected by the degree to which the manager practiced servant leadership. In a field study (Study 2) with a sample representing 10 diverse organizations in Singapore, we replicated the findings. In another laboratory experiment (Study 3), we demonstrated that follower serving self-efficacy mediated the interactional effect found in the first two studies, supporting the social learning account for the transference of manager servant leadership to follower serving behaviors. Taken together, converging results from these three studies demonstrate that servant leaders are capable of bringing out serving behaviors especially among followers with a strong focus on their own self-interest.

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Research paper thumbnail of I-Deals: A Competence Development Strategy Servant Leaders Employ to Manage Individuals and Groups

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Servant Leadership Scale-7

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2015

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Research paper thumbnail of Antecedents of Voice Behavior: A Meta- Analytic Review

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

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Research paper thumbnail of Serving You Depletes Me? A Leader-Centric Examination of Servant Leadership Behaviors

Journal of Management, 2020

Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ra... more Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ramifications for their subsequent behavior (McClean, Barnes, Courtright, & Johnson, 2019). Taking such a dynamic perspective on leader behaviors, we examined daily servant leadership behavior and its downstream effects on the leaders themselves from a within-person self-regulation perspective. Results from two experience sampling studies consistently revealed that engaging in daily servant leadership behavior can come at a cost for the leaders. Specifically, for leaders who are low in perspective taking, engaging in servant leadership behavior was associated with increases in same-day depletion and next-day withdrawal from their leadership role (i.e., greater laissez-faire behavior). However, for leaders who frequently exercise perspective taking, engaging in daily servant leadership behavior was instead associated with decreases in depletion and subsequent laissez-faire behavior, suggesting that servant leadership behaviors are replenishing for these individuals. Experience in perspective taking is therefore a key individual difference that determines whether enacting servant leadership behavior is beneficial or detrimental for leaders. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide avenues for future leadership research.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Just What You Need: the Complementary Effect of Leader Proactive Personality and Team Need for Approval

Journal of Business and Psychology, 2019

Drawing from the performance requirement matching perspective of leadership effectiveness (Zaccar... more Drawing from the performance requirement matching perspective of leadership effectiveness (Zaccaro, Green, Dubrow, & Kolze, 2018), the current study investigates how leader proactive personality and team need for approval interactively relate to team commitment and subsequent team performance. We hypothesize that the positive effect of leader proactive personality on team commitment is strengthened when teams have high need for approval. Further, we expect team commitment to transmit the interactive effect between leader proactive personality and team need for approval on team performance. Survey data collected from 80 team leaders and 395 members supported the proposed mediated moderation model. Specifically, in teams with high need for approval, leader proactive personality positively predicted team commitment, which subsequently predicted team performance. In contrast, in teams with low need for approval, leader proactive personality had nonsignificant relationship with team commitment. Overall, the current findings highlight the theoretical importance of understanding leader-team complemen-tarity and underscore the need to recognize team need for approval composition as a context that bounds the influence of leader proactivity. The present study also offers actionable input for team selection and assessment.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Leadership in virtual teams: A multilevel perspective

Understanding leadership functioning in virtual teams becomes critical as organizations increasin... more Understanding leadership functioning in virtual teams becomes critical as organizations increasingly use dispersed teams for talent acquisition. In the current article I present a preliminary model that explicates how task- and relationship-oriented leader behaviors influence team and individual processes and outcomes in virtual teams. Further, I discuss cross-level relationships between virtual team and individual processes, as well as the boundary effects of contextual factors (i.e., task complexity, task interdependence, and virtuality) in virtual leadership functioning.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Idiosyncratic deals and individual effectiveness: The moderating role of leader-member exchange differentiation

Extending prior research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), in the current study we examine the fu... more Extending prior research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), in the current study we examine the functioning of i-deals in the context of leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation. To that end, we integrate justice, social exchange, and social comparison theories and hypothesize that employee perceptions of their managers' procedural fairness and LMX quality partially mediate (in sequence) the positive relationship between i-deals and individual effectiveness, including job satisfaction, in-role performance, and helping behavior. Furthermore, we propose that LMX differentiation moderates this mediated relationship, such that the mediation effect becomes stronger when LMX differentiation within the group is greater. Data from a U.S. sample of 961 employees and their managers in 71 restaurants supported our hypothesized model. Results shed light on managerial practices regarding how to gain positive effects from i-deals by considering the influence of LMX differentiation.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Idiosyncratic deals in contemporary organizations: A qualitative and meta-analytical review

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) research focuses on the emergence of customized work arrangements e... more Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) research focuses on the emergence of customized work arrangements employees negotiate with their employers. This article provides a critical review and synthesis of i-deals research, combining a qualitative review of i-deals theory and research with a supplementary meta-analysis of 23 empirical studies (k = 27 samples, N= 8110 individuals). The qualitative review examines the conceptualization and measurement of i-deals and identifies patterns and gaps in i-deals research, while the quantitative metaanalysis tests the moderating effect of societal cultures on the predictors and consequences of ideals investigated to date. In each section, attention is given to strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to i-deals theory and research. Future research directions are identified with particular emphasis on the largely unexamined role of i-deals from a multilevel perspective.

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Research paper thumbnail of Does liking explain variance above and beyond LMX? A meta-analysis

Although liking or affect was a central construct during the 1980's and 1990's in supervisor-subo... more Although liking or affect was a central construct during the 1980's and 1990's in supervisor-subordinate dyadic research, a review of the literature suggests that since the turn of the century leader-member exchange (LMX) has emerged as the primary construct to assess relational quality. A question exists whether liking, as a reflection of interpersonal attraction, should continue to be included in organization research that focuses on dyadic relations and whether liking is redundant to LMX. To answer this question, we examined the incremental validity and construct redundancy of liking in relation to LMX based onmeta-analyses. Results indicated that liking and LMX have similar patterns with common correlateswith respect to effect sizes and significance. Moderator analysis revealed that reporting source of liking and LMX result in significantly higher correlations with antecedent and outcome variables when common reporting source data is used. Incremental variance analysis results demonstrated that liking can potentially explain additional variance over LMX for consequences. Overall, our results suggest that liking is an important and distinct construct that facilitates the development of LMX and therefore should not be abandoned in organizational research that examine supervisor-subordinate relational quality.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance

In a sample of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants of a moderately sized restaurant chain, we... more In a sample of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants of a moderately sized restaurant chain, we investigated a key tenet of servant leadership theory—that servant leaders guide followers to emulate the leader’s behavior by prioritizing the needs of others above their own. We developed and tested a model contending that servant leaders propagate servant leadership behaviors among followers by creating a serving culture, which directly influences unit (i.e., restaurant/store) performance and enhances individual attitudes and behaviors directly and through the mediating influence of individuals’ identification with the unit. As hypothesized, serving culture was positively related both to restaurant performance and employee job performance, creativity, and customer service behaviors, and negatively related to turnover intentions, both directly and through employee identification with the restaurant. Same-source common method bias was reduced by employing five sources of data: employees, restaurant managers, customers, internal audits by headquarters staff, and external audits by a consulting firm.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28

Although research on servant leadership has been expanding over the past several years, a concise... more Although research on servant leadership has been expanding over the past several years, a concise, valid scale for assessing global servant leadership has been lacking. In the current investigation a 7-item measure of global servant leadership (SL-7), based on Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson's (2008) 28-item servant leadership measure (SL-28), is introduced. Psychometric properties of the SL-7 were assessed at the individual level with data collected from 729 undergraduate students, 218 graduate students, and 552 leader–follower dyads from 11 organizations, and at the team level with a study consisting of a total of 71 ongoing intact work teams. Results across three independent studies with six samples showed correlations between the SL-7 and SL-28 scales ranging from .78 to .97, internal consistency reliabilities over .80 in all samples, and significant criterion-related validities for the SL-7 that parallel those found with the SL-28.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact