THE THRESHOLD EFFECT OF PARTICIPATIVE LEADERSHIP AND THE ROLE OF LEADER INFORMATION SHARING

Drawing on implicit leadership theory (Brown & Lord, 2001; Eden & Leviatan, 1975), we hypothesize that the relationship between participative leadership and employee performance is curvilinear (J-shaped), suggesting that participative leadership is unrelated to employee performance when part...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Academy of Management journal 2015-06, Vol.58 (3), p.836-855
Main Authors: LAM, CATHERINE K., HUANG, XU, CHAN, SIMON C. H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Call centers
Employees
Factories
Information exchange
Information sharing
Leadership
Organizational effectiveness
Public relations
Studies
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Summary:Drawing on implicit leadership theory (Brown & Lord, 2001; Eden & Leviatan, 1975), we hypothesize that the relationship between participative leadership and employee performance is curvilinear (J-shaped), suggesting that participative leadership is unrelated to employee performance when participative leadership is below a moderate level (i.e., a threshold). Above this threshold, increased participative leadership is related to higher employee performance. Building on adaptive resonance theory (Grossberg, 1999), a variant of implicit leadership theory, we further hypothesize that leaders' information-sharing behavior will moderate this curvilinear relationship. We test this model using two independent samples: office and call-center employees (Study 1) and factory workers (Study 2). Results from Study 1 reveal that this curvilinear relationship is stronger when leaders' information sharing is high and weaker when information sharing is low. Furthermore, in Study 2, we find that leadership effectiveness mediates the interactive effect of participative leadership and information sharing on objective work performance.
ISSN:0001-4273
1948-0989
DOI:10.5465/amj.2013.0427