Influencing the salesforce through perceived ethical leadership: the role of salesforce socialization and person–organization fit on salesperson ethics and performance

With today's emphasis on building strong customer relationships in the business-to-business sales environment, appropriate leadership is necessary to instill ethical and provide the proper guidance among employees to ensure ethical decision-making and improve sales performance. This research examines the role of perceived ethical leadership as it relates to both formal and informal marketing control mechanisms (i.e. salesforce socialization) that influence person–organization fit, and how this fit relates to salesperson unethical intent and performance. Results from a study of 408 business-to-business salespeople suggest that perceived ethical leadership both directly, and indirectly via salesforce socialization, affects salesperson ethical values person–organization fit, which in turn affects salesperson performance. Based on these findings, both theoretical and managerial implications are provided, as well as directions for future research.     

Trainee Perceptions of Drill Sergeant Qualities During Basic Combat Training

Basic combat training plays an important role in military service with approximately 72,000 soldiers participating in the United States annually. Although Drill Sergeant qualities have been widely portrayed in popular media, there is very little empirical research that documents the characteristics of Drill Sergeants and the impact these characteristics may have on trainees. In this study we evaluated a measure of perceived Drill Sergeant qualities and the degree to which these qualities related to mental health symptoms and job-related outcomes of trainees. Three types of perceived Drill Sergeant qualities were found from factor analyses: motivation, respect, and toughness. Using latent growth curve analyses, higher initial scores on motivation and respect, but not toughness, were associated with greater decreases in mental health symptoms over time. Further, changes in perceived Drill Sergeant qualities related to changes in depressive symptoms, unit cohesion, and citizen behaviors assessed over the course of basic combat training.     

Orthodox Christianity in Italy: historical continuity and social discontinuity

From the historical point of view, the presence of Orthodox churches in Italy is a reality established over several centuries; from the sociological point of view, however, their presence is a new phenomenon. As a result of the significant processes of immigration from Eastern Europe over the last 15 years, their importance within the social and religious contexts has grown considerably, to the point that Orthodoxy is rivalling Islam as the second-largest religion in the country. In this article I aim first of all to provide a historical framework for the relationship between the ‘Western world’, especially Italian, and the ‘Eastern world’ of Orthodoxy. Then I shall briefly analyse two examples of different interactions between Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic context in Italy: the Montaner parish and the monastic community of Bose. Finally I shall present some outcomes from the first research project on the presence of Orthodox churches carried out in Italy during 2011, illustrating the mapping of the spread of the various jurisdictions in the Italian regions, and deepening some elements such as the relationship with the Italian state, the leadership of the various communities and the dynamics of interaction between the Orthodox churches and Catholicism.     

Leading yourself and leading others: Linking self-leadership to transformational,transactional, and laissez-faire leadership

It has often been proposed that one must lead oneself before being able to lead others (e.g., Drucker, 1999 Drucker, P. 1999. Managing oneself. Harvard Business Review, : March–April, 65–74.  [Google Scholar]; Manz & Sims, 1991 Manz, C. C. and Sims, H. P. Jr. 1991. Superleadership: Beyond the myth of heroic leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 19: 18–35. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Pearce, 2007 Pearce, C. L. 2007. The future of leadership development: The importance of identity, multi-level approaches, self-leadership, physical fitness, shared leadership, networking, creativity, emotions, spirituality and on-boarding processes. Human Resource Management Review, 17: 355–359. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In two studies, we empirically investigated associations among self-leadership (with subfacets) and the full range leadership model (transformational, transactional, laissez-faire leadership) in N = 447 professionals with leadership experience (Study 1) and N = 35 leaders with N = 151 followers (Study 2). In both studies, leaders' self-leadership was positively associated with active styles of leading (transformational and transactional leadership) and negatively with passive styles of leading (laissez-faire leadership), as indicated by self- and follower-reports. These relationships remained even after controlling for sex, age, and leadership experience. Overall, data support the notion that effectively leading oneself is associated with effectively leading others.     

Revisiting the survivor syndrome: The role of leadership in implementing downsizing

This article examines the key strategic and operational aspects of managing downsizing in Barclaycard, a credit card company, and SKF (UK), a bearings manufacturing company. The article begins by briefly reviewing the literature on downsizing; it then presents the data collection methods used in this study. The main areas explored were the strategic reasons for downsizing, the implementation strategies used, and the reactions of middle managers and nonmanagerial staff. In both organizations, downsizing was accompanied by significant redesign and transformation. The underlying theme in Barclaycard was that downsizing was a proactive measure in order to protect future jobs; despite this, the survivors' reactions were negative. SKF (UK) had experienced many rounds of downsizing over the years, yet the reactions of survivors were positive. This article provides possible explanations for these contrasting findings and concludes by suggesting actions that organizations need to take in order to avoid the survivor syndrome.     

Transformational and transactional leaderships,empowerment climate,and innovation performance: A multilevel analysis in the Chinese context

Innovation through creativity is an important factor in the success and competitive advantage of organizations. Theory and research suggest that both leadership and organizational climate have important consequences for individual creativity. However, researchers have rarely considered the interactive effects of leadership and organizational climate. This study taking a “Substitute for Leadership” perspective, develops and tests the idea that empowerment climate affect the relationship between leadership and followers' creative performance. Data were collected from 93 teams, including 465 team members and 93 team supervisors, in a large multinational company based in China. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to examine the hypothesized cross-level model. As expected, transformational leadership and team empowerment climate were positively related to subordinates' creative performance and transactional leadership was negatively related to subordinates' creative performance. In addition, the relationship between leadership and subordinates' creative performance was moderated by team empowerment climate. The study resulted in the implication of several major variables for explaining individual creativity in the Chinese context.     

Transformational leadership and customer service: A moderated mediation model of negative affectivity and emotion regulation

Integrating theories from leadership, emotion management, affectivity, and customer service, this study examines how transformational leadership leads to favourable customer intentions via the mediation of service employees' emotion regulation, job satisfaction, and their service performance and via the moderation of employee negative affectivity. Results obtained from data of 204 matched sets of managers, service employees, and customers show that the effect of transformational leadership on amplification of pleasant emotions was conditioned on service employees' negative affectivity. Employee service performance partially mediated the effect of job satisfaction on customer outcomes. Finally, overall results reveal that transformational leadership and amplification of pleasant emotions were more strongly related to the customer outcomes, as mediated through the intervening variables in the model, when negative affectivity was high than when negative affectivity was low. Results have implications for how service workers with negative affectivity can manage their emotions to achieve effective service outcomes through interactions with a leader, how the effect of transformational leadership can be bounded, and how transformational leadership and emotion regulation are relevant to customer service.     

Exploring the black box of the contingent reward leadership–performance relationship: The role of perceived justice and emotional exhaustion

Using data collected from three different sources (N = 294), we examined a model in which perceived organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) and emotional exhaustion mediate the relationship between contingent reward leadership (CRL) and two performance indicators, namely organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and absenteeism. We found that procedural justice mediates the negative relationship between CRL and emotional exhaustion while controlling for work overload and transformational leadership. We also found that emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationship between two dimensions of justice (procedural and interactional) and both OCB and absenteeism. Interactional justice and distributive justice were also directly linked to OCB. Implications of these findings for research on leadership, psychological health, and organizational justice are discussed.     

The moderator role of followers’ personality traits in the relations between leadership styles,two types of task performance and work result satisfaction

Authentic leadership is changing our understanding of what makes good leadership. However, few studies have explored how followers’ individual differences and the nature of the task they perform affect its relation to followers’ work outcomes. We examine the moderator role of two core task types (intellective vs. generative) and two personality traits (conscientiousness and emotional stability) in the relationship between two leadership feedback styles (authentic vs. transactional) and task performance or work result satisfaction in a two-wave experiment. The sample consisted of 228 participants enrolled in an organizational psychology course, 34% of whom had work experience. Our results show that over time the effect of an authentic feedback style on task performance became stronger for those participants who previously scored very low on intellective tasks or very high on generative tasks. Furthermore, a significant three-way interaction between these two traits and our leadership feedback styles indicates that the effect of authentic feedback conforms different patterns depending on the followers’ personality traits and the type of task they perform. Moreover, authentic feedback had a stronger effect on participants’ work result satisfaction. Participants with low levels of either conscientiousness or emotional stability displayed higher levels of satisfaction in the authentic feedback condition.