Leadership Style and Employee Openness
- with Trust and Leader-Member Exchange as
Mediators and Power Distance as Moderator
Ruby Kun Kit Yu
10394249 Master’s Thesis
Master’s programme: Communication Science – Corporate Communication
Thesis Supervisor: Dr Joep Hofhuis
Abstract
As increasing number of businesses go global, supervisors are more frequently dealing with employees from various cultural background. While employee’s input can be essential to the survival of organizations, it is crucial for supervisors to effectively elicit openness from their international employees. However, whether employees will speak up may be influenced by their value towards power distance. While studies exploring the link between leadership style and employee openness is largely missing, the present study seeks to fill in this gap with three goals. First, I attempt to investigate which leadership style, directive or participative, leads to higher openness. Then, I examine whether trust and leader-member exchange perceived by employees are the underlying factors explaining their openness. Lastly, I investigate whether employee’s disposition towards power distance influences employee openness towards these supervisors. Results of a survey research (N=197) reveal participative leadership style leads to higher employee openness. Trust and leader-member exchange are found to be the root causes of employees openness towards directive supervisors, while these two factors only partly decide if employees are open to participative supervisors. Finally, the results indicate employee’s value in power distance affects their openness towards directive supervisors but not to participative supervisors. This thus suggests directive leadership should be the most effective when employee value high power distance, while participative
leadership may be a universal management style as culture factors may have no impact on its effectiveness. To encourage employee openness, supervisors especially directive ones should work on gaining trust and building quality leader-member exchange with employees.
Introduction
Globalization of businesses means supervisors are in more frequent contact with employees with different cultural background. This is particularly true for multinational corporations which recruit staff members from various countries. As organizations can benefit from employees with heterogeneous cultural background for their different
viewpoints, ideas and knowledge (Hofhuis, van der Zee & Otten, 2012), one of the key goals for supervisors is to elicit more openness from their international employees. This however can be a challenge as employee openness can be influenced by the leadership style of supervisors as well as the disposition towards power distance of employees. Besides, trust and leader-member exchange between supervisors and employees are likely to affect the extent of employee openness.
While there are considerable amount of evidence showing how the perception of employees towards the characteristics and behavior of their supervisors influences employee openness (see Morrison, 2011), it is surprising to observe there were only a few studies examining the link between supervisor’s leadership style on employee openness (e.g.Detert & Burris, 2007; Liu, Zhu, & Yang, 2010; Walumbwa, Morrison, & Christensen, 2012; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). However, in those studies, either transformational or ethical leadership styles was the focus. Research on the relationship between openness and
directive or participative leaderships, which are two of the most universally important management styles across culture in leadership research, was rarely conducted (Dorfman et al., 1997). Therefore, there is an urge for scholars to explore this missing link to fill in the gap in existing literatures. Furthermore, due to the raise in intercultural communication,
immediate attention should be drawn to examine whether culture variables, especially employee’s disposition towards power distance, could influence this relationship. This is
highly valuable for both scholars and management to understand whether there is a universal management style that can be applied across cultures.
In the present study, I attempt to join the quest in search of the universal management style with the focus on directive and participative leadership styles. The central research questions guiding throughout this paper are of this paper remains which leadership style leads to high employee openness and how is it influenced by power distance? Are trust and leader-member exchanges possible factors leading to employee openness? To supply answers to these questions, I will explore the links between directive and participative leadership styles and employee openness and examine how this relationship can be influenced by power distance. Besides, I examine if trust and leader-member exchange are the underlying factors explaining employee openness.
Theoretical Background
Theoretical Framework
In the existing leadership literatures, there has been extensive research on the positive organizational outcomes related to directive and participative leadership styles, supporting both are globally essential (Dorfman et al., 1997). However, in the journey to search for the universally management style, results of cross-cultural leadership literatures have been inconclusive as not only each leadership style has its strengths over the others, but the
perception of a prototypical effective leader also varies across country (Brodbeck et al., 2000; Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007; House et al., 2004; Somech, 2006). In view of this, it is
important to determine which quality is seen as universally important. This paper argues that ability to elicit employee openness is one of the crucial qualities a universal effective leader should possess as employee’s remarks, suggestions or solutions can be influential to the survival of organizations (Morrison, 2011).
However, research exploring the link between directive and participative leadership style and openness is largely missing. Hence, this paper serves as one of the first research to examine this link. Furthermore, it is crucial to understand the reasons behind employee openness to these supervisors to facilitate the formulation of strategies to improve openness. I suggest trust and leader-member exchange are the possible reasons that make employees to speak up. Most importantly, the effectiveness of a universal management style should be relatively stable across different cultures. Therefore, this paper investigates whether power distance can influence openness towards different types of supervisors to suggest if their effectiveness is uniform around the world. In the following sections, I will detail each of the variables and suggest the links between them with the support from previous literatures.
Directive and Participative Leadership Style
Directive leadership style refers to the management style in which the leader provides clear directions and expectations to structure employees’ work and expect employees to comply with his/her instructions (House, 1971; Lorinkova, Pearsall, & Sims Jr., 2012; Pearce et al., 2003; Somech, 2006; Yukl & Falbe, 1992). Previous research provided support on the effectiveness of directive leadership style on organizational outcomes including improved job satisfaction, employees’ commitment, as well as low role ambiguity and task accomplishment (Dorfman et al., 1997; Lorinkova et al., 2012). A recent study conducted in eleven countries suggested directive leadership is highly associated with employees’ job performance in Europeand the United States (Hwang et al., 2013). They therefore supported the notion that directive leadership should be a universal management style. However, researchers argued the effectiveness of directive leadership style varies across countries, as some of the positive organizational outcomes are only shown in some cultures but not others (e.g. Dorfman et al., 1997; Muczyk & Reimaan, 1987). Besides, its effectiveness can as well vary over time since it was found that the job performance of employees under directive supervisors could reach a
plateau over time (Lorinkova et al., 2012). Similar contradictory results are also found in studies on participative leadership style.
Participative leadership style refers to a management style in which the leader invites and integrates subordinates’ suggestions, ideas and opinions during decision-making
processes (Northhouse, 2012; Ogbeide & Harrington, 2011). With the focus on encouraging subordinates’ input, participative leadership style is found to be beneficial to organizations in terms of increased flexibility, creativity and openness to new ideas (Eisenhardt, 1989;
Krishnan, Miller, & Judge, 1997; Sharfman & Dean, 1997), employees’ motivation,
satisfaction, likelihood to increase quality decisions (Ogbeide, Groves, & Cho, 2008; Smylie, Lazarus, & Brownlee-Conyers, 1996). Those outcomes eventually lead to organizational success (Nonaka, 1988; Nutt, 1989). Besides, research also showed high degree of participative leadership style results in higher financial performance, regardless of the organizational size (Ogbeide & Harrington, 2011). These results are in line with the most influential and extensive Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project (GLOBE), which found participative leadership is nearly universally endorsed (House et al., 2004). However, Hwang and colleagues (2013) suggested effectiveness of participative leader behaviors may vary across countries as they argued that participative leadership style has no relationship with job performance in Europe and in the United States. Results of Dorfman and colleagues (1997) also agreed effectiveness of participative leadership is culture-specific as they found participative leadership leads to job satisfaction only in Korea but not in the four other countries they investigated.
While it seems that the organizational outcomes resulted from directive and
participative leadership are all generally termed as “leader effectiveness”, there appears to be no official or agreed consensus on which organizational outcomes are seen as universally important. In light of this, I argue that the ability to encourage employee openness is one of
the most important quality a universally effective leader should possess as employees viewpoints, ideas, knowledge, suggestions, information about problems, concerns can influence the survival chance of organizations (Hofhuis et al., 2012; Morrison, 2011). In the following section, I will offer explanations and theoretical support related to the importance of employee openness.
Openness as a Universally Essential Organizational Outcome
Openness refers to “an interpersonal condition that exists between people when facts, ideas, values, beliefs and feelings are readily transmitted and the recipient of a transmission is willing to listen to that transmission ” (Bulach, 1993, p.4). According to this definition, openness is the reciprocal actions of telling and listening between the message sender and the listener, which are the supervisors and employees in the organizational context. This
definition is similar to the term open communication relationship Jablin and Krone (1985) coined as well as voice from Morrison (2011) as both the sender and the receiver are voluntary in message exchange. However, individuals expressing openness does not specifically refrain negative information as in open communication, or only focus on
constructive messages or as a form of challenging behavior as in voice. Hence, openness is a rather neutral term in terms of the content of message exchange. However, due to their similarity, the scope of the current literature review will cover studies on those two variables as well.
Many organizational theorists stressed the importance in openness for effective leadership (Bulach & Peterson, 1999). Openness has been found to be one of the determinants of creativity and innovation, which are highly valuable in the current technological advanced era (Berggren, Bergek, Bengtsson, Hobday, & Söderlund, 2013 ; Martins & Terblanche, 2003). The case study on the firm 3M suggested ideas from
employees are the key to its commercial success (McLean, 2005). Besides, employee’s voice leads to higher quality organizational decision making and increased error detection
(Morrison & Miliken, 2000). Moreover, it contributes to organizational improvement and learning (Detert & Burris, 2007; Dutton & Ashford, 1993; Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). Morrison’s (2011) review of the consequences of employee’s voice behavior also shows an overwhelming support that openness from employees is advantageous at the organizational level and is even critical to the survival of organizations, although arguments do exist whether openness is beneficial at the employee’s individual level. Therefore, there is no doubt that employee openness a pivotal outcome in which effective leaders should elicit.
Unfortunately, it seems that the importance of openness is not getting the attention it deserves since the amount of previous study exploring the link between directive or
participative leadership styles and employee openness is far from sufficient. Hence, I attempt to be one of the first to examine this link with the predictions from relevant studies.
Linking Leadership Style and Employee Openness
Although study on leadership style and openness is lacking, there has been studies on the effect of supervisor behaviors and characteristics on employee voice, suggesting what supervisors do can impact the degree of openness from employees (Morrison, 2011). For instance, it is found that employees are more open towards supervisors if the supervisors are perceived as approachable, willing to listen and are interested in employee input (Detert & Burris, 2007). Similarly, if employees think supervisors value their input, they will be more willing to open up as employees may feel higher self-efficacy and safety (Glauser, 1984). Thus, this leads to a logical assumption that employee openness can be, to a certain extent, shaped by supervisors. Flowing from this, it is argued that leadership style is one of the most influential factors on openness from employees.
To my knowledge, there is no study investigating the relationship between directive leadership and openness. However, as Lorinkova and colleagues (2012) highlighted directive leadership style is associated with supervisor’s positional power, studies on the effect of power on voice from employees may be valuable in predicting the concerned relationship. In their laboratory studies, Locke and Anderson (2010) found that subtle cues that convey power, including direct eye gaze, postural expansion, high vocal volume, can make
employees speak less. Therefore, it is sensible to assume that the top-down communication displayed by directive supervisors may be perceived as power and authority by employees, leading to a decrease in employee openness. Research suggests not only does the perception of power by employees can influence their openness, but also the perception of power from the supervisors. Morrison and Rothman (2009) supported this view as they found the feeling of power may lead to supervisors’ false judgment regarding their competence and thus lower their acceptance towards employee’s input. This in turn reduces employee openness.
However, this view is not without challenge. Somech (2006) found the opposite is true through a survey research. Her result reveals that directive leadership is positively related to team reflection, which refers the extent team members “collectively reflect on team’s objectives, strategies and processes (West, 1996, p.559)”. Yet in this study, employees were required to offer input as requested from the directive supervisors. This violates my
assumption on openness that the action of speaking up should be voluntary. Therefore, I support the former view that the more directive supervisors are, the more power felt by both employees and the supervisors, and the less employees are willing to open up towards them. With this standpoint, below hypothesis is formulated:
On the other hand, as participative leadership style highlights the importance of employees’ involvement in decision making processes, supervisors adopting this management style value communication with employees. As mentioned previously,
employees who think their supervisors are willing to listen and interested in their input will be more open (Detert & Burris, 2007; Glauser, 1984). This view is supported by various researchers. For instance, the result of a large scale survey study from hospitals indicates manager’s consultation behavior is related to the increase in nurses’ upward voice, as nurses will perceive their opinions as more influential (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2012). Also focus on superior-subordinate communication in hospitals, the results of Edmondson’s (2003) case study reveals that surgeons encourages openness from subordinates by downplaying power differences. In line with their findings, the result of Somech (2006) indicates participative leadership style is positively related to team reflection. Currently, there seems to be no
opposing voice against these results. Therefore, consistent the view of researchers, I posit that the more participative supervisors are, the more openness they receive from employees. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1b Participative leadership style displays a positive relationship with employee openness towards supervisor.
At this point the relationships between the two leadership styles and employee openness are proposed. Attention will now be drawn to the possible mediators causing the posited relationships.
Possible Mediators Leading to Employee Openness
In internal communication literatures, trust and leader-member exchange are two of the most important elements that should exist between supervisors and employees (Avolio,
Walumbwa, & Weber, 2009; Bijlsma & van de Bunt, 2003). In this section, I will explain both concepts in greater details and justify why they are the possible mediators.
Trust. Trust have been widely researched on across different disciplines including economy (e.g. Williamson, 1993; North, 1990), psychology (e.g. Rotter, 1967) and sociology (e.g. Granovetter, 1985; Zucker, 1986). Although there were disciplinary differences
characterizing trust, a cross-discipline research has been conducted and confirmed scholars in general agreed on the fundamental meaning of trust, which defines trust as “a
psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another (Rosseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998, p.395)” and that two conditions, risk and interdependence, must exist for trust to arise.
Not surprisingly, trust is the core of human relations (Bulach & Peterson, 1999). The positive effects of trust on individual level, team level and organizational level have been empirically established (e.g. Dirk & Ferrin, 2002; Tzafrir, 2005; Prichard & Ashleigh, 2007). In organizations, trust between management and employees is a crucial element for effective working relationships (Ashleigh, Higgs, & Dulewicz, 2012; Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007). Trust building expertise of leaders are regarded as the most important skills to improve organizations (Saxl, Miles, and Lieberman, 1989). Therefore, it seems clear that in order for employees to be open towards supervisors, trust from employees towards supervisor is one of the prerequisites, and that trust from employees is developed from the way supervisors manage them. In order words, it is rational to suggest trust is a possible mediator between leadership style and employee openness.
Leader-member exchange (LMX). Leader-member exchange is defined as the dyadic, exchange, mutual and supportive relationships between leaders and employees (Liu, Cai, Li, Shi, & Fang, 2013). Yet due to the constraints of time and resources, leader may
have varying quality relationship between leader and different members in the same group (Allinson, Armstrong, & Hayes, 2001). Previous research suggested this relationship can range from low quality to high quality (Aryee & Chen, 2005; Dienesch & Liden, 1986; Liden & Maslyn, 1998). The characteristics of high quality LMX relationship include high level of understanding, frequent communication exchange, support and rewards while low quality LMX relationships consists of mistrust and task-oriented attitude (Liu et al., 2013) .
There has been plentiful of research investigating the benefits of quality LMX. It has been established that LMX relates positively with employees’ organizational identification (Liu et al., 2013), commitment (Green, Anderson, & Shivers, 1996), decreased employees’ intention to leave (Liu et al., 2013), task performance (Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975) and job satisfaction (Dansereau et al., 1975; Green et al., 1996), showing that research in general has been consistently showing positive relationship between LMX and performance ratings (Wayne, Shore & Liden, 1997).
In contrast with the overwhelming number of research on the positive outcomes related to LMX, it is surprising there are much fewer prior research which investigated the determinants of LMX. Mutual liking, leader expectations of subordinates have been tested empirically as antecedents of LMX (Wayne et al., 1997). In China, supervisors’ control of rewards and work unit climate are tested to be valid determinants for quality LMX (Aryee & Chen, 2005). Research also tried to investigate whether cognitive style could impact degree of LMX, yet they failed to find support (Allinson et al., 2001).
Trust and leader-member exchange as mediators. Due to the fact that high quality LMX contributes to organizational success, this becomes even more luring to examine the possible factors that triggers better LMX relationship. While there was empirical evidence showing LMX mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and task
performance (Wang, Law, Hackett, Wang & Chen, 2005), the link between other types of leadership style and LMX has yet been explored. This paper thus attempts to fill in this gap and examine the link between participative and directive leadership and LMX and investigate the link between supervisor-employees relationship (LMX) and open communication from employees.
Therefore, by integrating these support together with the previous posited links on leadership styles and openness, it is proposed that trust and LMX are two mediators effecting degree of openness from employees towards supervisor with different leadership styles. The hypotheses are hence formulated as below:
H2 The relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness towards supervisor is mediated by a. trust; and b. LMX.
H3 The relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness towards supervisor is mediated by a. trust; and b. LMX.
After suggesting the possible mediators leading employee openness above, I will move on to the most important part of this research – the investigation on the moderating role of cultural value, power distance in this case, on the relationship between leadership styles and openness.
Influence of Employee’s Power Distance Value on Openness towards Supervisors
Extensive research has shown culture is a moderator on the relationship between leadership styles and organizational outcomes (Gelfand et al., 2007). The most dominant metric of culture is the five-dimensional measure from Hofstede (1983) which has been referenced by numerous intercultural studies (Yoo, Donthu & Lenartowicz, 2011). In this research, the influence of one of these cultural variables, power distance, on employee
communication towards supervisor is of particular interest. Power distance in organizations is related to the centralization of authority and autocratic leadership (Hofstede, 1983). Leaders as well as members of the society in high power distance culture accept the fact that power is distributed unequally. This power difference can be displayed by directive leadership style as commands are top-down, indicating an unequal power distribution in communication
between supervisor and employees. Employees with high orientation to power distance believe supervisors should have power over them and thus they tend to accept commands from supervisors without questioning (Hofstede, 1980).
Unfortunately, the influence of power distance on employee’s voice was not examined till recently. To my knowledge, the only one study exploring this link is from Botero and van Dyne (2009) who suggested one’s power distance value affects the
“perceptions of appropriate supervisor-subordinate behaviors (p.89)” which in turn impact the willingness of employee to make suggestions or to open up. Their survey research in the United States and Columbia supported this view as they found that power distance is
negatively related to employee voice in both countries. However, as studies in this areas are missing, there is still lots of room for exploration and argumentation.
In the present study, I attempt to explore how power distance influences the
relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness, using salient value similarity model as the theoretical backbone. In this model, it posits that individuals sharing similar salient values have higher trust in each other than those without (see Siegrist,
Cvetkovich, & Roth, 2000). Salient values refers to one’s perception of important processes and/or goals, and that which value is salient depends on the situation.
In the organizational settings, internal communication is an important process to achieve organizational goals. While previous literature suggests directive leadership style
relates to power and employees having high tendency towards power distance believe in unequal power distribution in the organization (Lorinkova et al., 2012; Hofstede, 1983), directive supervisors and employees who value high power distance share a similar and salient value. Therefore, it is logical to assume that employees who value high power distance possess similar view with directive supervisors that their communication should be top-down without much input from employees. Meanwhile, they both should similarly believe that goals of the organization will be achieved when employees comply with the instruction from directive supervisors. Because of the similarity in salient value about power, there should be a high mutual trust as suggested by this model. While in the previous section I proposed trust to be positively related to openness, I argue that when employee’s disposition towards power distance is high, they will be more open towards their directive supervisors. Hence, the hypothesis is proposed as follows:
H4a The relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness towards supervisor is moderated by employee’s disposition towards power distance, such that
employees’ openness will be more positive when his/her disposition towards power distance is high than when the disposition is low.
However, in contrast with directive leadership style, participative leadership style encourages equal position between the supervisor and employees. This violates the belief of high power distance culture as power difference no longer exists. Hence, it leads to a
mismatch in salient value between participative supervisors and employees with high power distance orientation. Based on the salient value similarity model, low trust between them should be resulted and in turn openness should be decreased. Therefore, an opposite hypothesis is proposed:
H4b The relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness towards supervisor is moderated by employee’s disposition towards power distance, such that
employees’ openness will be more negative when his/her disposition towards power distance is high than when the disposition is low.
For the sake of clarity, the whole conceptual model summarizing all hypotheses proposed is presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Conceptual model for the relationship between directive and participative leadership style and employee openness
Method
Respondents
Invitation to participate were mostly sent to Hong Kong and Dutch people for the fact that they were found to be two opposites in disposition towards power distance in Hofstede’s (1983) study. This tactics enables the data to contain a wide distribution in disposition. Yet naturally, respondents from other countries were also welcomed. In all, 317 respondents started the survey and 197 have completed it. The dropout rate was 38 per cent. From the data obtained from the completed surveys, 101 respondents were from Hong Kong (51.3%), 64
Trust Directive/ Participative Leadership Style Leader-Member Exchange Employee Openness Employee’s Disposition towards
Power Distance H1a/b
H2b/3b H2a/3a
from the Netherlands (32.5%) and 32 from other countries (15.7%). 60% of the respondents were female. The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 57 (M=28.47, SD=6.42). In general, the respondents are well educated as 51.5% of the respondents were pursuing or had finished a research degree and 36.2% were pursuing or finished a professional degree. The remaining 12.2% completed high school or below.
Data Collection Procedure
Research data was collected through online survey. Sixteen people piloted the survey to ensure the understandability of all questions. After the pilot test, the survey was launched officially from 1st May, 2014 to 20th May, 2014.
Respondents were invited to fill in the survey through snowball sampling by social network site Facebook. The invitations were sent to respondents as private messages on Facebook and were posted on Facebook groups’ wall and my personal Facebook wall. I chose this channel believing that it could reach a large pool of audience in a short time and the audience could easily forward the invitation to others with the Facebook platform. The invitation message explicated the respondents must match two criteria in order to participate in the research. First, he/she must be currently employed. Second, he/she must be currently working under an immediate supervisor. Apart from that, the invitation message also attached the link to the online survey and indicated the average time to complete the survey would be ten minutes. At the end of the invitation message, respondents were encouraged to forward the invitation to one or two more friends who match the participating requirements. When they clicked the survey link, they would be redirected to the welcome page of the survey, where they were guaranteed all information provided would be kept confidential and their identity would be anonymous. If they agreed to participate in the research, they would have to click the “next” button at the bottom of the page to start the survey. Respondents had the
right to stop participating in the research at any time without any consequence. No incentive was offered for participation. At the end of the survey, respondents were thanked for their participation.
Measurement and Operationalization
Directive leadership style. I measured directive leadership style using the scale developed by Pearce and Sim Jr (2002). The original scale included six items but after reviewing the items, one item was removed as it was rather repetitive. The remaining five items displayed an internal reliability of 0.86. Respondents have to rate their agreement against a seven-point Likert scale on statements about their supervisors like “my direct supervisor establishes the goals for my work” in which “1” means “Strong Disagree” and “7” means “Strongly Agree”.
Participative leadership style. I measured participative leadership style using the scale developed by Arnold, Arad, Rhoades and Drasgow (2000). This six-item scale
displayed an internal consistency of 0.88. Respondents have to rate their agreement against a seven-point Likert scale on statements about their supervisors like “my direct supervisor listens to my work group's ideas and suggestions” in which “1” means “Strong Disagree” and “7” means “Strongly Agree”.
Employee openness. I adopted the twelve-item openness scale from the Group Openness and Trust Scale developed by Bulach and Peterson(1999) to measure employee openness. The scale displayed an internal consistency of 0.89. This scale was originally used for research on communication between school teachers and school principals. In order for the scale to fit into the context of communication between employee and supervisor, the items in the scale were reworded. Respondents have to rate their agreement against a
seven-point Likert scale on statements like “I tell my direct supervisor what I think of the way he/she does things” in which “1” means “Strong Disagree” and “7” means “Strongly Agree”.
Trust. The trust scale was also extracted from Group Openness and Trust Scale from Bulach and Peterson(1999). The original scale consisted of eighteen items with five constructs. After reviewing all items, three constructs, each with four items, were selected for this research as they fit the research purpose most. This shortened scale displayed an internal consistency of 0.86. The items were reworded to fit into the context of communication between employee and supervisor. Respondents have to rate their agreement against a seven-point Likert scale for statements like “I believe that my direct supervisor cares about me” in which “1” means “Strong Disagree” and “7” means “Strongly Agree”.
Leader-member exchange. I measured leader-member exchange with the seven-item scale from Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995), who modified the original scale developed by Scandura and Graen (1984). The scale displayed an internal consistency of 0.84. Respondents have to evaluate their relationship with their direct supervisor against a seven-point scale. Example of items include “how well does your leader recognize your potential?” in which “1” denotes “Not At All” and “7” means “Most Fully”.
Employee’s disposition towards power distance. I adopted the five-item individual’s
disposition towards power distance scale from Yoo and colleagues (2011) and it displayed an internal consistency of 0.86. Respondents have to rate their agreement against a seven-point Likert scale for statements like “People in higher positions should make most decision
without consulting people in lower positions” in which “1” means “Strong Disagree” and “7” means “Strongly Agree”.
Result
For a more logical sequence for readers, I will first present all the results related to directive leadership style, followed by results on participative leadership style.
Directive Leadership Style and Employee Openness
To test the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 1a), I conducted a simple regression with openness as dependent variable and directive leadership style as independent variable. Result shows a positive relationship between directive leadership style and openness, R2=.04, b=0.16, t=2.99, p<.01, 95%CI[0.06, 0.27]. Although I predicted a significant relationship, the direction of the relationship found contradicts the negative one I proposed for Hypothesis 1a. Therefore, Hypothesis 1a is rejected.
The mediating role of trust. As I predicted trust to be a mediator between directive leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 2a), I have to first test whether the relationships between directive leadership and trust as well as between trust and openness are significant with two separate simple regressions. Results show a positive and significant relationship between directive leadership style and trust, R2=.14, b=0.24, t=5.59, p<.001, 95%CI[3.24, 4.04]. Similarly, a positive and significant relationship between trust and openness is also found, R2=.18, b=0.49, t=6.54, p<.001, 95%CI[1.61,3.04]. The mediation analysis for trust can now proceed.
I conducted a multiple regression with openness as dependent variable and both directive leadership style and trust as predictors. Result shows when the effect of directive leadership style is controlled under the influence of trust, the relationship between directive leadership style and openness becomes non-significant. This indicates trust completely
removed the effect of directive leadership style on openness. In line with the prediction of Hypothesis 2a, trust is found to be fully mediating the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness (b=0.16, p<.001; b’=0.05, ns; Sobel’s Z = 4.00, p<.001). Hence, Hypothesis 2a is confirmed.
The mediating role of LMX. Similarly, to test whether LMX is another mediator causing the positive relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 2b), the relationships between directive leadership style and LMX as well as between LMX and openness are first tested with two separate simple regressions. Results indicate a positive and significant relationship between directive leadership style and LMX, R2=.13, b=0.29, t=5.43, p<.001, 95%CI[0.18, 0.39], as well as between LMX and openness, R2=.25, b=0.48, t=8.00, p<.001, 95%CI[0.36, 0.60]. The mediation analysis for LMX can now follow.
To do so, I conducted a multiple regression with openness as dependent variable and both directive leadership style and LMX as predictors. Result shows when the effect of directive leadership style is controlled under the influence of LMX, the relationship between directive leadership style and openness becomes non-significant. This indicates LMX
completely removed the effect of directive leadership style on openness. In line with the prediction of Hypothesis 2b, result shows LMX fully mediates the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness (b=.29, p<.001; b’=.03, ns; Sobel’s Z=4.35, p<.001). Therefore, Hypothesis 2b is confirmed.
To investigate the reason why trust and LMX can both fully mediate the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness at the same time, I conducted a simple correlation between trust and LMX. Result shows there is a significant and moderately strong positive correlation between trust and LMX, r=.715, p<.001. With the strong positive
correlation between the two variables, it explains why they both can fully mediate the relationship between directive leadership style and openness.
The moderating role of employee’s disposition towards power distance. To test whether employee’s disposition towards power distance moderates the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 4a), I conducted a multiple regression with openness as dependent variable, directive leadership style, power distance and the interaction of directive leadership style and power distance as independent variables. Result in Table 1 below shows a positive and significant relationship between the interaction of directive leadership style and power distance with employee openness. Thus, it indicates that employee’s disposition towards power distance moderates the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness, confirming Hypothesis 4a. As illustrated in Figure 2, directive leadership style displays a stronger relationship with employee openness w en the power distance is high.
Table 1. Results of moderation analysis of employee’s disposition towards power distance on the relationship between directive leadership style and employee openness
b S.E. t p
Constant 4.64 0.07 71.18 .000
Directive Leadership 0.20 0.07 3.01 .003
Power Distance 0.02 0.07 0.35 .728
Directive Leadership X Power Distance 0.12 0.06 2.13 .034 N=197, R2=0.07.
Figure 2. Moderating effect of employee’s disposition towards power distance on the relationship between directive leadership style on employee openness.
However, this figure alone is not enough to tell whether the differences in openness between the low and high directive leadership group are significant under either the high or low power distance group. Therefore, I categorized respondents into high or low power distance group as well as high or low directive leadership group by mean split. Then I conducted two separate one-way analyses of variances (ANOVA). I selected the high power distance group (n=92) for the first ANOVA, and used openness as the dependent variable and the directive leadership grouping as factor. Result shows openness from high power distance employees is significantly higher towards high directive leaders (n=54, M=4.92, SD=0.78) than low directive ones (n=38 , M=4.46, SD=0.96), F(1,90)=6.33, p<.05, η2=4.66.
In the second ANOVA, I selected the low power distance group (n=105) and
similarly, I used openness as the dependent variable and the directive leadership grouping as the factor. However, result suggested there is no difference between openness in the low power distance employees towards high directive leaders (n=55 ,M=4.72, SD=0.99) and low directive ones (n= 50,M=4.46, SD=0.96), F(1,103)=1.96, ns, η2=1.85.
Up till this point, all the hypotheses related to directive leadership style have been tested. In the following sections, the hypotheses related to participative leadership style will be in focus. 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5
Low Directive Leadership Style High Directive Leadership Style
Op en n ess Low Power Distance High Power Distance
Participative Leadership Style and Employee Openness
To test the relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 1b), I conducted a simple regression with openness as dependent variable and participative leadership style as independent variable. Result shows a positive relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness, R2=.21, b=0.36, t=7.19, p<.001, 95%CI[0.26, 0.46]. This gives support to Hypothesis 1b.
The mediating role of trust. As I predicted trust to be a mediator between
participative leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 3a), I have to first examine the relationship between participative leadership style and trust. Result shows a positive and significant relationship between participative leadership style and trust, R2=.40, b=0.43, t=11.34, p<.001, 95%CI[0.35, 0.50]. The mediation analysis for trust can now follow.
I conducted a multiple regression analysis with openness as dependent variable and both participative leadership style and trust as predictors. Result shows when the effect of participative leadership style is controlled under the influence of trust, its relationship with openness remains significant but the effect size is reduced. This indicates trust partially removed the effect of participative leadership style on openness. In line with the prediction of Hypothesis 3a, trust is found to be partially mediating the relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness (b=0.36, p<.001; b’=0.25, p<0.001; Sobel’s Z = 2.70, p<.01). Therefore, Hypothesis 3a is confirmed.
The mediating role of LMX. Likewise, to proceed to test whether LMX is another mediator causing then positive relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 3b), the relationship between participative leadership style and LMX is first tested by a simple regression. Result shows a positive and significant
relationship between participative leadership style and LMX, R2=.42, b=0.53, t=11.90, p<.001, 95%CI[0.44, 0.62]. The mediation analysis for LMX can now begin.
To do so, I performed a multiple regression with openness as dependent variable and both participative leadership style and LMX as predictors. Result shows when the effect of participative leadership style is controlled under the influence of LMX, its relationship with openness remains significant but the effect size is reduced. This indicates LMX partially removed the effect of participative leadership style on openness. Consistent with the
prediction of Hypothesis 3b, LMX is found to be partially mediating the relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness (b=.36, p<.001; b’=.18, p<.01 Sobel’s Z=4.06, p<.001). Hypothesis 3b is hereby confirmed.
The moderating role of employee’s disposition towards power distance. To test whether employee’s disposition towards power distance moderates the relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness (Hypothesis 4b), I conducted a multiple regression with openness as dependent variable, participative leadership style, power distance and interaction between participative leadership style and power distance as independent variables. Result in Table 2 below shows no relationship between the interaction of participative leadership style and power distance with employee openness. This indicates power distance does not play any role in the relationship between participative leadership style and openness, opposing the prediction of Hypothesis 4b. Hence Hypothesis 4b is rejected.
Table 2. Results of moderation analysis of employee’s disposition towards power distance on the relationship between participative leadership style and employee openness
b S.E. t p
Constant 4.67 0.06 78.06 .000
Participative Leadership 0.45 0.06 7.38 .000
Power Distance 0.10 0.06 1.60 .110
Participative Leadership X Power Distance 0.50 0.06 0.86 .392 N=197, R2=0.22
Discussion
As globalization poses a challenge for supervisors to encourage openness from
employees with various cultural background, the goal of the present study is threefold. First, I aim to investigate which leadership style leads to higher employee openness. Second, I study the roles of trust and leader-member exchange in this relationship. Lastly and more
importantly, I take the cultural dimension into account and examine how employee’s disposition towards power distance can influence their openness towards these types of supervisors. Results of the present study are valuable to enrich the existing cross-cultural leadership literature and to contribute to the quest in search for a universal management style.
Theoretical Implications
Agreeing with hypothesis, participative leadership style in general leads to higher employee openness than directive leadership style, indicating participative supervisors are more effective in obtaining viewpoints, idea and knowledge from their employees than directive leaders. This result joins in the extensive support from researchers regarding to the effectiveness of participative supervisors to trigger openness (Detert & Burris, 2007;
However, the hypothesis that directive leadership style could decrease openness is rejected. The reason could be that the cues displaying power may not be always present in directive leadership style. The study of Locke and Anderson (2010) showed that directive leader can speak in soft tone and a participative leader can convey power with high voice. This may suggest that cues and leadership style may not be as naturally connected as I expected. Besides, the link between the wrong perception of directive supervisors on their own competence and their receptivity to employee input may be not as strong in the reality as Morrison and Rothman (2009) assumed, and the number of supervisors having the false perception may be small. Furthermore, due to the requirement of their job or to facilitate the completion of tasks, employees may be obliged to give suggestions and ideas.
The most important finding of the present study is that power distance does not influence openness towards participative leaders but only to directive leaders. It indicates the effectiveness of participative leadership style is uniform across cultures, while the
effectiveness of directive supervisors varies across culture. Hence, results support the notion that participative leadership style should be a universal management style to achieve
intercultural communicative success. The constant effectiveness of participative leadership style across cultures may offer an explanation on why the GLOBE project found that this style is nearly globally endorsed (House et al., 2004).
Adhering to prediction, trust and leader-member exchange are found to be two important factors leading to employee openness towards both directive and participative supervisors. Interesting, both factors fully explain why employees are open to directive supervisors but they only partly explain openness towards participative supervisors.
Combining the results on power distance, I suggest the effectiveness of directive leadership is sensitive to culture and is be highly dependent on the presence of trust and quality exchange with employees. This finding agrees with previous studies from Dorfman et al. (1997) and
Muczyk and Reimann (1987) that the effectiveness of directive leadership is contingent on situations or culture.
It is noteworthy that directive leadership is especially effective in gaining openness when employees value power distance. It implies that directive leadership should work best in organizations where employees homogeneously value power distance, which is possible when employees share similar cultural background. Flowing from this thinking, I suggest directive leadership should be more effective as the management style for organizations with less diverse cultural background and with high power distance value.
However, it is important to clarify this does not imply directive leadership should not be used in international organizations. My result only suggests that if the goal of the
organization is to be successful in intercultural communication, directive leadership may not be the best management style as participative leaders can perform better in this sense. Therefore, if organizations are aiming to achieve goals for instance enhancing job performance, which is an outcome highly related to directive leadership but less to
participative leadership (Hwang et al., 2013; Dorfman et al., 1997), directive leadership style may still be a preferred management style. This further explains how this leadership style is contingent to circumstances.
Managerial Implication
This research reveals both directive and participative leadership style lead to openness from employees, serving as a proof to support the view of Morrison (2011) that supervisor behavior can impact employee’s communicative openness. Hence supervisors, to some extent, can tactically increase openness of employees with their communication strategies. While it seems effectiveness of directive leadership is more susceptible to influences, I will focus on offering recommendations for directive supervisors.
As power distance affects openness in communication between employees and directive supervisors, directive supervisors should take cultural differences in mind and understand that their leadership style has different impact on different employees. Attempts to influence employee’s power distance to increase openness, however, may be unrealistic as values are deeply internalized so supervisors are unlikely to influence it. Instead, directive supervisors should focus on building trust and establishing quality exchange with employees as these two factors have direct impact on openness. Below I have gathered suggestions from previous research to improve these two factors.
To increase trust from employees, Bijlsma and van de Bunt (2003) empirically proved three concrete supervisor behaviors, which are support, guidance and monitoring
respectively, are effective. In addition, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) , Kramer (1996)and Tyler and Degoey (1996)suggested employee’s perception of fair treatment increases trust on supervisors. This stresses the importance of supervisor’s fairness. For better quality of leader-member exchange, it is important for supervisors to give feedback, clarification, recognition and praise during their communication with employees (these actions are collectively termed as “contingent reward behavior”) (Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012). While I found that trust and leader-member exchange are highly intertwined with each other, I believe that taking actions suggested above cause positive and synergistic effect on both factors.
Limitations and Future Research
The above tactics can also be used by participative supervisors as well to enhance employee openness. However, unlike directive supervisors, there are more unknown factors apart from trust and leader-member exchange that lead to openness to participative
supervisors, it will be highly valuable for scholars to further investigate what other factors can cause employee’s openness.
Besides, only one cultural factor power distance is examined without taking into account of other culture variables in the present study. Hence, the theoretical foundations supporting that participative leadership should be an universal management style or directive leadership should be emic are not yet solid. Nevertheless, this research is one of the first to shed light on the effect of culture on employee openness. It is important for future research to continuously enriching this area of intercultural communication literatures. In particular, further investigation on the moderating roles of other cultural variables like Hofstede
(1983)’s individualism, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity, as well as Hall (1976)’s high- or low-context communication on the relationship between leader behavior and employee openness are worthy of scholar’s attention.
There are always methodological limitations in every research. The measures of leadership style, openness, trust, leader-member exchange and power distance in the present study are all self-report by employees which could affect my results. For instance, employees who are not satisfied with their supervisors may be biased in rating their supervisors
leadership style. However, I believe the strength of effects found ensures the validity of this study.
Additionally, although causation is assumed in my mediation analyses, it cannot be tested in this cross-sectional study. To establish causals effect suggested in this paper, it will be valuable to conduct longitude study in a real-life organizational settings to study the relationship between leadership style and openness from employees with different cultural backgrounds. I believe result from this type of study can strengthen findings of the current study.
Conclusion
The present research shows on the one hand, effectiveness of participative supervisors in eliciting employee openness is consistent across culture, supporting the view that it should be a universal leadership style to manage heterogeneous employees. On the other hand, openness towards directive leadership is maximal when employees value high power distance, suggesting it works best in organizations where employees homogenously accept power difference. Both types of supervisors should tactically build trust from and establish positive leader-member exchange with employees to encourage openness.
In sum, this paper is the first to explore the influence of culture on the relationship between leadership styles and openness. Results offer fresh and valuable insights on cross-cultural leadership and contribute to the quest to search for a universal management style.
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