The Friction Between Bottom-Line Mentality and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior, Its Relation Explained and The Moderating
Role of Perfectionism.
Joppe Maarleveld 11817577
University of Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Business
July 7th 2020
Abstract
Growing research has been conducted on all sorts of consequences of BLM. However, no study has tried to examine the effect that leader BLM has on follower OCB. In addition, no study has tried to examine the moderating role of leader perfectionism on this effect. The recent study is about these two yet to be examined effects. It was expected that leader BLM behavior would lead to followers imitating this BLM behavior and with that less OCB. Thereby, because of the fact that perfectionists set high performance standards, it was expected that more BLM behavior would be performed by the leaders and therefore imitated by the followers. Which would ultimately result in even less OCB. To be specific, it was hypothesized that leader BLM would decrease follower OCB and that leader perfectionism would increase this negative effect. These hypotheses were tested with a sample size of 93 leader-follower dyads. The two hypotheses were both not supported, meaning that leader BLM did not have a significant effect on follower OCB and leader perfectionism did not increase the relation between the two. However, it was found that under a condition of low perfectionism, leader BLM stimulates follower OCB.
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Joppe Maarleveld who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Introduction
“We’ve totally screwed up”. These were the words of Martin Winterkorn, to be named former CEO of Volkswagen AG (VW), when arguably one of the largest corporate scandals to date surfaced. The so-called ‘diesel-gate’ is still very recent as the news emerged in September 2015. According to BBC News it was not just a default in the software that was overlooked. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency found that around 482.000 Volkswagen vehicles in the US had software or devices built in that could notice when the vehicle was being tested on a stationary test rig, whereafter it decreased the performance capacity of the vehicle so that emission results were much lower. Later VW admitted that around 12 million cars they produced included this software. Not only did this disgraceful act by VW caused extra pollution and decreased sales for comparable automobile manufacturers like Mercedes or BMW, it also shows a severe amount of unethicality. All of it results from the sole focus they had on one outcome, that is their profits, which made them neglect all other important aspects of business on such a global scale. This focus on one outcome can also be indicated as Bottom-Line Mentality (BLM). VW exclusively focused on the bottom-line which was increasing financial performance. The consequences resulting from that are disastrous for the company.
The example of the VW scandal is just one of many scandals with catastrophic consequences due to unethical behavior. In the past years growing attention from researchers has been dedicated towards the dark side of leadership, leadership that is detrimental to followers and often organizations, and similar concepts (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). Due to the negative consequences it is of high importance for these top leaders’ credibility to be perceived as an ethical leader. If they behave unethically, this will have negative effects on both their managerial careers and the companies’ public reputation (Den Hartog, 2015). This study will investigate one form of unethical leadership which is BLM. BLM can be seen as solely focusing on one factor that is considered to be the most important factor when one is to be judged, which causes all other factors to be perceived as not important and these will therefore be neglected (Wolfe, 1988). There are studies already conducted on the consequences of leader BLM. For example, Farasat, Azim and Ali (2019) recently evinced that supervisor BLM makes employees engage in cheating behavior. Other problematic consequences include abusive supervision which is the followers’ perception of constant non-physical hostile behavior by a leader (Mawritz, Greenbaum, Butts & Graham, 2017). Wolfe (1988) showed that the tunnel vision focus on a single dominant outcome and the contemporaneous disregarding of vital
organizational values that goes with BLM negatively affects the organizations’ long-term success.
On the other hand, a positive effect on organizations’ long-term success is worked out by Smith, Organ and Near (1983). They stated that for organizations to be successful, their employees should be willing to do more than just the minimal efforts that they are required to do as conform to their task description. This behavior is known as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). When being measured among employees, OCB is defined as an employee performing a certain behavior that promotes the goals of the organization and does this by putting in more effort than essentially needed to stimulate its social and psychological environment (Srivastava & Saldanha, 2008).
Greenbaum, Quade and Mayer (2015) already stated that BLM could have a negative effect on OCB. However, current literature is lacking the combination of the two, while the importance of (un)ethical concepts like these in the modern work space is increasing. Therefore, the recent study will focus on this gap in the literature, that is the effect of leader BLM onto employee OCB. In general, BLM is compared with the focus on one single outcome (Wolfe, 1988) while OCB is, in contrast to that, concerned with much more than the single task that they are evaluated on (Smith et al., 1983). These conflicting values make it an interesting field of study and are therefore the main reason to investigate the relation between BLM and OCB in the current study. Due to the opposite anticipated effects, it is expected that leader BLM will have a negative effect on employee OCB. This would occur through the employee also engaging in BLM by imitating BLM from the leader (Mawritz et al., 2017) or being demanded by management to perform BLM (Babalola, Greenbaum, Amarnani, Shoss, Deng, Garba & Guo, 2020). The BLM behavior among employees could make them neglect other valuable actions like OCB.
This effect of imitating BLM from leaders or leaders demanding BLM from their employees might be higher when these leaders are setting high performance standards. They then demand more from their employees possibly due to these leaders’ high perfectionism. This potential moderating effect of perfectionism will be researched in this study. Perfectionism can be described as a characteristic that makes people strive for flawlessness, set extremely high standards of performance and evaluate themselves severely (Stoeber, Davis & Townley, 2013). It is expected that leaders high in perfectionism will increase the negative effect of their BLM on follower OCB. Perfectionistic leaders will make their followers focus more on one bottom-line on which they are judged due to high performance standards. In other words, the followers will engage more in BLM behavior and therefore less in OCB.
This study will contribute to the knowledge about BLM, OCB and perfectionism inside organizations. It will be relevant to science as it puts forward new insights about the relation between BLM and OCB and how perfectionism can influence this relation. Organizations aiming to improve their management practices surrounding these topics can appeal to this study if they want to increase their knowledge about the relations mentioned above. This creates a high practical relevancy as well.
Hence, the goals of this paper are to contribute to filling the gap of missing information concerning the two mentioned effects and increase global knowledge about BLM, OCB and perfectionism. Additionally, this paper is also concerned with extending the research possibilities for other scholars by advancing their understanding around these topics and to eventually challenge them to build further on the outcomes of this study. To realize these goals this study will try to answer the research questions: How is leader BLM related to follower OCB and how do different levels of leader perfectionism influence the relation between leader BLM and follower OCB?
After this introduction the concepts are elaborated and discussed in more detail in the theoretical framework whereafter the design, sample, procedure, measures and analytical plan of this study will be explained in the methods section. Subsequently, the results section will be shown and these will then be interpreted in the discussion. Herein, the practical limitations and future research possibilities will also be discussed.
Theoretical Framework
Little research is done to conceptualize unethical leadership which makes it a vague concept as of now (Eisenbeiß & Brodbeck, 2014). However, Brown and Mitchell (2010) recently stated that unethical leadership is behavior and decision making from organizational leaders that is illegal and/or violates moral standards. On top of that, they see unethical leadership as structures or processes that makes followers engage in unethical behavior as well. To get a better understanding of the concept that is unethical leadership, one could look at the overarching construct which is called destructive leadership (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). Destructive leadership is leadership behavior that harms others or the organization or reflects unfairness and harsh treatment (Den Hartog, 2015) and is therefore similar to unethical leadership.
Bottom-Line Mentality
The form of unethical leadership behavior that this research will address is BLM. BLM is described by Greenbaum, Mawritz and Eissa (2012, p. 344) as “one-dimensional thinking
that revolves around securing bottom-line outcomes to the neglect of competing priorities”.
These bottom-line outcomes are often associated with financial performance measures (Wolfe, 1988). For example, a supervisor could only focus on the profit he/she is responsible for to make his/her performance look good. This focus on a single bottom-line outcome can be related to immediate negative outcomes such as decreased OCB, turnover intentions or deviance (Greenbaum et al., 2015). According to Greenbaum et al. (2012), leader BLM is related to subordinate employee BLM and subsequently to the employees working against each other in favor of themselves. This behavior is called social undermining. In addition, Quade, Mclarty and Bonner (2019) concluded that generally employees perceive their relationships with leaders who engage in BLM as a low-quality leader-member exchange which results in the employee withholding the behavior that the leaders high in BLM want from them.
The leaders that are high in BLM are in such an intense focus on the accomplishment of one single outcome that they usually tend to neglect all other important values like adhering to moral and social norms (Barsky, 2008; Wolfe, 1988). It is this negligence of the other important factors, such as important processes and values, instead of just the focus on a bottom-line outcome or goal, that makes high BLM dysfunctional. The commitment to solely one goal that goes with BLM inhibits approachability to other goals (Shah, Friedman & Kruglanski, 2002; Barsky, 2008; Greenbaum et al., 2012). In addition, Trevino and Brown (2004) conclude that if leaders are unclear about their ethical values towards their employees, these employees assume bottom-line outcomes to be most important when ethical guidelines are absent.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
When an employee performs OCB in an organization this employee performs behavior that goes further than what is stated in this employees’ job description (Meyer & Allen, 1997). In addition, OCB entails behavior that is not rewarded for when it is performed and not punished for if it is not performed. It is also behavior for which no training is provided (Organ, 1988). When OCB is performed by individuals within a group, the quantity and quality of product output and team effectiveness of that group is enlarged (Podsakoff, Ahearne, & Mackenzie, 1997). Organizations that have employees engaging in OCB are found to be perceived as higher quality organizations, with high operating efficiency and customer satisfaction (Walz & Niehoff, 2000). As one can see, OCB is an important factor to organizational success. Giving
extra help to your co-workers, proposing some suggestions when a problem occurs or volunteering for activities in the organization are a few examples of how an employee might engage in OCB (Meyer & Allan, 1997).
Organ (1988) shows that there are five different types of OCB. Firstly, consciousness, which is about working hard and obeying the rules and regulations. The second type is sportsmanship, that is working positively in both positive and negative times. Furthermore, civic virtue, which means taking part in the daily life of the organization, and courtesy, which is more about having respect for your colleagues. Altruism, the fifth type, is being helpful to others. This current study will focus on the types of OCB that involve support and respect for colleagues, thus mainly focusing on courtesy and altruism of employees. However, no distinction between the two is made.
According to Rioux and Penner (2001), three motives are known to cause OCB. Prosocial values, the first of these motives, is about building proper relationships with others in the organization and being helpful. Another motive is organizational concern, where caring for the company and being proud to be working at the organization increases OCB. Impression management, the third motive, is trying to make yourself look good in front of others (Bolino, 1999). The motives of prosocial values and organizational concern are generally more likely to cause and therefore predict OCB compared to the motive of impression management (Rioux & Penner, 2001).
Bottom-Line Mentality and Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Babalola et al. (2020) recently showed that managements’ BLM leads employees to devote all of their available efforts and resources in a certain manner so as to achieve the bottom-line goal that is asked from them. This results from the employees’ need to meet expectations of their environment and being able to maintain their personal success and survival (i.e. keep their position in the organization) and thus makes them engage in BLM behavior. This complete focus on the bottom-line can lead to the employees devoting less time and resources to other valuable behaviors like OCB. This is the first reason to expect that BLM will decrease the amount of OCB performed.
On top of that, when a leader behaves with a BLM, followers can imitate this behavior. Leader BLM can signal to followers that this way of acting is appropriate and that the sole focus on bottom-line outcomes is needed (Mawritz et al., 2017). Therefore, followers can imitate BLM behavior from their supervisors. Employees engaging in BLM behavior, in turn, can lead them to bring up rivalry among themselves (Wolfe, 1988). This can cause them to engage in
social undermining, which entails behavior that slows down other colleagues, tries to decrease their performance and hinder the ability to build and maintain positive interpersonal relationships (Duffy, Ganster & Pagon, 2002). These forms of behavior imply that prosocial values become weaker. Therefore, it is expected that the amount of OCB performed will end up being lower.
Another consequence of followers performing and imitating BLM behavior is that this resulting employee BLM will shift the employees’ focus from their company’s success to the employee’s own evaluated performance (Rioux & Penner, 2001). According to Babalola et al. (2020), the employees’ notification of their managements’ BLM stimulates self-regard thinking. This means that they direct their attention towards their personal concerns rather than to those of the organization and they are stimulated to perform unethical behavior. Therefore, organizational concern can decrease and pro-ethical practices like OCB are less likely to be executed. Therefore, it is expected that OCB decreases accordingly.
In addition to these suppositions, Mesdaghinia, Rawat and Nadavulakere (2019) recently found that leader BLM is related to the employee engaging in unethical actions to benefit their leaders, which they called unethical pro-leader behavior (UPLB), as they feel compelled to comply with the interest of the high-BLM leaders. It is expected that this feeling of pressure to satisfy the leaders’ interests might lead followers to copy the BLM behavior from their leaders to facilitate the satisfaction and therefore again decrease OCB. On top of that, performing UPLB could directly enable leaders to get the followers to reach bottom-line outcomes with the neglection of other important behavior like OCB. Hence, it is expected that UPLB, as a result of leader BLM, is another way in which leader BLM reduces OCB.
The reasonings above support the hypothesis that leader’s BLM has a decreasing effect on OCB through the consequences of the focus on the bottom-line and the imitating behavior by followers. Hence, the first hypothesis can be formulated as:
Hypothesis 1: Leader BLM will have a negative effect on follower OCB.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a personality characteristic that is shown by setting extremely high performance standards and striving for flawless outcomes, where simultaneously evaluations are highly critical (Stoeber, Eklund & Tenenbaum, 2014). If an individual is high in perfectionism, this person tends to be rigid and inflexible about its desired level of performance and can impose itself with an all-or-nothing judgement process (Egan, Piek, Dyck & Rees,
2007). If the individual just falls short on reaching its standards, this is seen as total failure (Hewitt, Flett & Mikail, 2017). On top of that, even if a perfectionistic individual reaches its targets, this individual is still unlikely to be satisfied. This individual is more likely to experience the relief and compulsion to set higher targets next time (Mor, Day, Flett, & Hewitt, 1995).
Stoeber and Otto (2006) state that perfectionism is divided into two dimensions. First there is perfectionism concerns, which is about perfectionism because of social pressures in the forms of concern over flaws, discrepancy and doubts about actions. Secondly, perfectionism strivings is about self-made perfection like high personal standards (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). These two forms of perfectionism are often highly correlated, but they show different patterns of behavior. Perfectionistic concerns usually show constant negative relationships such as neuroticism or depression. In contrast, perfectionistic strivings show positive relationships such as conscientiousness or satisfaction with life (Stoeber et al., 2014). In the current research, the focus will be more on the latter, perfectionistic strivings.
According to Harari, Swider, Steed and Breidenthal (2018) it is likely that most perfectionism is not constructive in organizations and that there is no positive relationship between performance and perfectionism. They find that the few advantages of perfectionism on employees, such as more motivation or engagement, are outweighed by the negative consequences for employees such as lower mental well-being. Leaders high in perfectionism create a greater engagement among followers who have a feeling of being in control of their behavior and the external environment. Followers that believe that they cannot influence their environment or their fate, experience more emotional exhaustion when their leader is high in perfectionism (Xu, Ji, Lui & Dong, 2019). Perfectionism can also make followers allocate much time and effort on perfecting only one task at the expense of other important tasks (Bergeron, 2007). This can subsequently imply that followers with leaders high in both BLM and perfectionism are more likely to imitate BLM behavior from these leaders.
Perfectionists set extremely high standards and therefore perfectionistic leaders will ask more out of their employees than leaders low in perfectionism. This can cause the employees to increase focus on their own evaluated outcomes and subsequently they then focus on a single outcome which entails their performance evaluation, which means they engage in BLM behavior. This focus employees might have on their evaluated outcomes can then be at the expense of performing other valuable activities that are not directly related to their own performance. In other words, organizational concern and prosocial values may be decreased
which means lower incentives to perform OCB. Thus, OCB among employees might then turn out to be lower when their leader is high in perfectionism.
Following the reasoning of the potential moderating effects that leader perfectionism might have on the relation between leader BLM and employee OCB, the second hypothesis can be formulated as follows:
Hypothesis 2: When leaders are high in perfectionism, the negative effect of leader BLM on follower OCB is higher than when leaders are low in perfectionism.
Methodology
DesignThe current research is based on a cross-sectional design where all data was collected through means of surveys. To be able to collect the data, leaders and corresponding followers received different surveys about their position in the organization and their relationship. Each dyad is formed by one leader and one follower that were matched with a unique code.
Sample
For this study, the amount of complete dyads that was collected is 96. Due to missing values 1 dyad was removed and 2 more dyads were removed due to outliers. Therefore, the amount of dyads analyzed is 93 dyads. In total 270 questionnaires were sent out, of which 202 respondent filled them in. This results in a response rate of 74.8%. 47.3% of all respondents in leader positions is female (see Table 1.1 in the Appendix). The leaders have an age range between 20 and 64 years (M = 43.75, SD = 12.71) and tenure ranging from 4 to 444 months (M = 118.53, SD = 109.39, see Table 1.1 in the Appendix). Of all followers, 60.2% of the respondents are female (see Table 1.1 in the Appendix). The followers have an age range between 18 and 62 years (M = 35.31, SD = 13.95) and tenure ranging from 2 to 405 months (M = 79.15, SD = 95.51, see Table 1.1 in the Appendix). Leaders and followers from the sample have a time working together ranging from 2 to 204 months (M = 32.61, SD = 35.06, see Table 1.1 in the Appendix).
Procedure
To collect the data, surveys were conducted among 96 leaders and corresponding followers. To be able to reach this amount of dyads within a group of nine students, each student had the goal to send the surveys to 12 leader-follower dyads in order to reach the target. The time for data collection was approximately one month. The leaders had to occupy a leader position in an organization (e.g. manager or supervisor) and the followers had to occupy a follower position in an organization, where each follower corresponded with a leader and made up one dyad.
Measures
This research includes three main variables. These are bottom-line mentality, perfectionism and organizational citizenship behavior. BLM was follower-rated and perfectionism and OCB were leader-rated. All questions were conducted with a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “completely disagree” to 7 = “completely agree”.
Bottom-Line Mentality was measured with the 6-item scale of Almeida, Den Hartog, de
Hoogh, Franco and Porto (submitted). Some examples that were among the items are “My supervisorfocuses exclusively on results regardless of the team’s needs” and ”My supervisor places excessive demands on employees”. The BLM scale showed sufficient reliability as indicated by Cronbach’s Alpha with a value 0.861 (Table 2.1 in the appendix).
Perfectionism was measured with the 6-item scale of Simms, Goldberg, Roberts,
Watson, Welte and Rotterman (2011). Some examples that were among the items are “I expect nothing less than perfection” or “I strive in every way possible to be flawless”. The perfectionism scale showed sufficient reliability as indicated by Cronbach’s Alpha with a value of 0.872 (Table 2.3 in the appendix).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior was measured with the 8-item scale of Lee and
Allen (2002). Some examples that were among the items are “The follower helps employees who have been absent” or “The follower adjusts his/her work schedule to accommodate other employees’ requests for time off”. The OCB scale showed sufficient reliability as indicated by Cronbach’s Alpha with a value of 0.823 (Table 2.5 in the appendix).
Certain control variables were included in the analysis with the purpose of ruling out possible external effects on the hypotheses. Leader work hours and follower work hours were chosen as control variables since it might affect the time the leader and the follower are working together each week and therefore their relationship, which can be of influence on the data and resulting outcomes. Leader work hours and follower work hours were measured on a numerical
scale. Contact intensity (follower-rated) was also included as a control variable since it also might influence the relationship between the leader and the follower. Contact intensity was measured on a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 = “completely disagree” and 7 = “completely agree”, and is therefore also measured on a numerical scale.
Analytical Plan
To be able to test the direct effect of leader BLM on follower OCB, linear regression was conducted with leader BLM as the independent variable (IV) and follower OCB as the outcome variable (OV). To test the moderating effect of leader perfectionism onto the effect of leader BLM on follower OCB, PROCESS macro (model 1) by Hayes (2018) was used with leader BLM as the IV, leader perfectionism as the moderator and follower OCB as the OV.
Results
AssumptionsBefore analysis could be conducted it was tested if regression assumptions were met. First, the relation between the IV and the OV was tested on linearity. A scatterplot was created (Figure 4.1 in the appendix). This plot indicates a weak linear relation since the data points are somewhat spread around the fitted line. Secondly, normality of residuals was tested. As can be seen in Figures 4.2 and 4.3 in the appendix, the residuals of both the IV and the moderator are normally distributed since the data points are close to the diagonal line. Thirdly, homoscedasticity of residuals was tested. The residuals of both the IV and the moderator are equally variable as the residuals are equally distributed throughout the plot and do not tend to bunch together (Figures 4.4 & 4.5 in the appendix). To check for outliers, z-scores were created for the OV score of every dyad. A cut-off point of 2.2 was used to identify outliers. There were two outliers with values higher than this cut-off point. The results after comparing analyses with and without the two outliers showed a slight improvement of the model without the outliers. Therefore, these outliers were removed from further analyses. Lastly, multicollinearity between the IV and the moderator was checked. Results show no multicollinearity as both variables show a tolerance above .20 and a VIF below 5 (Table 4.6 in the appendix).
Descriptives and Correlations
Table 1 contains the means and standard deviations of all variables and the correlations between each variable. Of all variables there are three main variables (1-3) and three control variables (4-6).
Between the three main variables there are no significant correlations. Of all significant correlations, there is one correlation that includes a main variable. This is the correlation between follower OCB and leader work hours which is weakly correlated given the correlation of .234. Besides that, there are two other significant correlations. These are correlations between follower work hours with both leader work hours (weak correlation) and contact intensity (moderate correlation) as can be seen in the table above. All of these significant correlations are positive correlations, meaning that if one variable is high the other variable is high as well.
Hypotheses Testing
To test hypothesis 1, leader BLM will have a negative effect on follower OCB, linear regression was conducted. In model 1, the three control variables were included, which were follower work hours, leader work hours and contact intensity. In model 2 the IV, leader BLM, was added to these control variables. The regression results reveal that R2 in model 2 is 7.9% (Table 5.1 in the Appendix). This implies that this model explains 7.9% of the total variance. R2 change of model 2 is .001 which indicates that only 0.1% of the explained variance is
explained by BLM and the other 7.8% is explained by the control variables included. In other words, model 2 improved 0.1% in explaining variance of the total variance compared with model 1, meaning that BLM has a very low predictive power on OCB. In addition, the corresponding p-value (.754) of model 2 indicates that the contribution of BLM in predicting OCB is non-significant.
The unstandardized β of the predictor variable, leader BLM, is .019 with a standard error of .062, a t-value of .315 and a p-value of .754 (Table 2). This β means that if the amount of BLM increases with 1 standard deviation, the amount of OCB should increase with .019
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Variables Mean Standard Deviation 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Leader BLM 2.525 1.085 (-.861)
2. Leader Perfectionism 4.659 1.067 .053 (.872)
3. Follower OCB 5.508 .647 -.002 -.058 (.823)
4. Follower Work Hoursa 29.508 11.297 -.067 -.070 .142
-5. Leader Work Hoursa 40.451 11.393 -.080 .012 .234* .249**
-6. Contact Intensityb 1.817 .859 .067 .084 -.146 .339** .102
-Notes. N = 93. Cronbach's Alpha's are in parentheses on the diagonal. aWork hours were measured in hours. bContact Intensity
was measured on a 7-point Likert scale.
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level ( 2-tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
standard deviations assuming that the other variables remain constant. However, this effect is non-significant because the p-value is higher than .05.
The overall significance of the model which includes the control variables and the IV is .124 (Table 5.2 in the appendix). This p-value is higher than .05 and therefore this model is non-significant. This overall non-significance of the model, together with the other results that show low predictive power, does not show any support for the first hypothesis. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is rejected.
To test hypothesis 2, when leaders are high in perfectionism, the negative effect of
leader BLM on follower OCB is higher than when leaders are low in perfectionism, PROCESS
macro (model 1) by Hayes (2018) was used. The overall interaction effect between leader BLM and follower OCB showed significance (β = -.163, SE = .065, t = -2.507, p = .014, CI = [-.291;-.034], Table 3). Despite that, this model is partially unconditional. This means to say that not all levels of leader perfectionism change the impact of leader BLM on follower OCB since not all conditional effects are significant. To be specific,for low values of perfectionism (β = .239, SE = .108, t = 2.219, p = .029, CI = [.025;.453], Table 5.4 in the appendix) the impact of leader BLM on follower OCB is significantly different compared to average and high values of perfectionism. However, for both average values of perfectionism (β = .007, SE = .066, t = .112, p = .911, CI = [.123;.138], Table 5.4 in the appendix) and high values of perfectionism (β = -.094, SE = .081, t = -1.169, p = .246, CI = [-.254;-.066], Table 5.4 in the appendix) the impact of leader BLM on follower OCB is not significantly shown to be different than for other values of perfectionism. This implies that only the significant conditional effect (effect of low perfectionism) can be interpreted.
The significant coefficient of low values of perfectionism shows that leader BLM has a stimulating effect on follower OCB when the leader is low in perfectionism. In other words, when leader BLM increases and leader perfectionism is low, OCB increases as well (Figure 1).
Table 2. Regression Table
Variables B SE B β t p
Constant 5.133 .387 13.246 .000
Follower Work Hours .001 .007 .018 .151 .880
Leader Work Hours .012 .006 .216 2.007 .048
Contact Intensity -.116 .087 -.148 -1.330 .187
Leader BLM .019 .062 .033 .315 .754
This is in contrast with the condition of high perfectionism where the effect of leader BLM on follower OCB is negative. In the condition of low perfectionism, leader BLM thus encourages follower OCB. However, the other conditional effects (effects of average and high perfectionism) are not significant. Therefore, the results cannot prove that with higher perfectionism, the negative effect of leader BLM on follower OCB is larger compared with low perfectionism. Hence, hypothesis 2 is rejected as well.
Figure 1. Moderation
Discussion
This study aimed to examine the relation between leader BLM and follower OCB and the moderating role that leader perfectionism has on this relation. The results showed no support for the first hypothesis. Firstly, the effect that was shown is slightly positive instead of a hypothesized negative effect. Secondly, this effect was shown as non-significant which means
Table 3. Moderation Table
Variables B SE t p LLCI ULCI
1. Constant 5.214 .344 15.156 .000 4.530 5.898
2. Follower Work Hours .000 .007 .012 .991 -.013 .013
3. Leader Work Hours .013 .006 2.145 .035 .001 .025
4. Contact Intensity -.125 .086 -1.456 .149 -.295 .046
5. Leader BLM .059 .067 .887 .377 -.073 .192
6. Leader Perfectionism -.032 .066 -.477 .634 -.163 .100 7. BLM * Perfectionism -.163 .065 -2.507 .014 -.295 -.034 Notes. N = 93. Dependent Variable is OCB. R2 is .148.
that that this study did not prove that leader BLM has a negative effect on follower OCB. The results that concerned the second hypothesis, which stated that high leader perfectionism would increase the negative effect of leader BLM onto follower OCB compared to low leader perfectionism, were more extensive. The results indicated that low leader perfectionism has a stimulating effect on the relation between leader BLM and follower OCB. This means that follower OCB increases as leader BLM increases only in a condition where the leader is low in perfectionism. This can be positive for organizations as organizations’ long-term success depends on OCB (Smith et al., 1983) and knowing how to increase OCB is therefore useful. For other conditions of perfectionism, that is average leader perfectionism and high leader perfectionism, the results showed different moderating effects as can be seen in Figure 1. However, these two conditional effects did not show enough significance. Therefore, this study did not provide evidence whether the negative effect of leader BLM on follower OCB increases when leaders are high in perfectionism compared to leaders low in perfectionism. In other words, these results did not show support for hypothesis 2 as well.
The results of this study are contributing to the increasing knowledge surrounding BLM, OCB and perfectionism. The direct relations between these topics was not yet examined and this study brings a good starting point with it. Namely, it showed an interesting finding. That is that leader BLM encourages and stimulates follower OCB under a condition of low leader perfectionism since the conditional effect of this condition has a significant (p = .029) unstandardized β of .239. On top of that, this study contributed in showing no significant effect of leader BLM on follower OCB when no other conditions are considered and in showing that high leader perfectionism does also not significantly affect follower OCB. Nowadays, OCB is increasing importance and multiple decades ago it was already found to be a key component of organizational survival (Katz, 1964). This indicates the high importance for organizations to develop and maintain OCB among their employees as much as possible. This study enhances the possibility for organizations to do that with the increased knowledge they have access to.
Compared to existing literature on the three topics, this study is somewhat contrasting to what already has been found. The outcomes imply that leader BLM does not always have to have negative ethical consequences. Existing literature on BLM often states that BLM causes employees to behave unethically. For example, Mesdaghinia et al. (2019) show that unethical pro-leader behavior is stimulated by leader BLM and Greenbaum et al. (2012) show that BLM leads to co-worker undermining. In addition, Mawritz et al. (2017) indicate the presence of abusive supervision due to leader BLM. This study, however, shows that, under a circumstance of low perfectionism, leader BLM can have a positive effect on certain ethical behavior that is
OCB. With that, this research can be a starting point for new and potentially important progress concerning both research and practice. Thereby, this research did also not show evidence for the overall negative effect of leader BLM on follower OCB that was hypothesized. Which is also not in line with existing literature where leader BLM is related to a decrease of ethical behavior and increase of unethical behaviors.
Research Limitations and Future Research
Although this study did find evidence for the positive effect of leader BLM on follower OCB under a specific condition, there is no evidence found for the overall relation between the two. The fact that no evidence was found could be explained by a couple of potential reasons. It could be that the theories of BLM imitation by followers or the performance of BLM by followers if it is demanded by their management are flawed. The hypothesized results, which stated that leader BLM would have a negative influence on follower OCB, were based on these theories where followers behave with BLM as well. Even though the imitation effect has been proven before (Greenbaum et al., 2017), it could be that this form of BLM is not of influence on follower OCB. To examine this, more research can be done on specifically identifying imitation of BLM by followers and examining the resulting outcomes on OCB.
Another possible factor that could underlie the non-significant results of this research is the relatively small sample size. With a larger sample size, the increased possibility of a Type II error could be avoided. This means that the possibility of assuming that something is true while it is not would be lower when increasing the sample size. With that, the predictive power of this research is lower, which could be increased with a larger sample size. However, the data of the sample used in the recent study was collected from different sources with all sorts of ages, business sectors and backgrounds which would imply that much different perspectives were considered. Therefore, the generalizability increases. Nevertheless, future research should focus on increasing the sample size when conducting a similar research as this increases predictive power.
On top of that, the amount of leader BLM was indicated by the followers as this variable was follower-rated in the surveys. Possibly, many followers may have a subjective or biased perspective of their leaders in that they perceive them with higher BLM than the leaders actually have. This can cause the outcomes to be distorted. Again, this could be of less concern when considering the diversity that the sample has. The different views on BLM could make this concern irrelevant. To be sure, it would be useful for future research to rule out this possible
subjective perspective of followers by proposing different questions in the survey that makes the determination of leader BLM more objective.
In addition, the stimulating effect of high leader perfectionism on the relation between leader BLM and follower OCB was hypothesized to be present due to high perfectionistic leaders to set high standards and ask more from employees. This effect can be absent because these high standards might often be not concerned on bottom-line outcomes like profit. Instead, it is plausible to think that setting high standards by perfectionists could be about the quality of how goals are to be reached and thus not about high bottom-line standards. This could lead to perfectionism not being of influence on BLM. This is an interesting theory to examine in future studies as it could make a large difference for resulting outcomes like OCB. For example, the distinction of perfectionism about products versus processes could be made to identify in more detail if one or both of these have an influence on BLM.
Timing of study is also a big limitation to consider. The current problems with the Covid-19 have had a lot of consequences for every organization. Working at the offices was often not possible during the data collection of this research and the months before. This might have a big influence on the relation between the leaders and the followers and consequently on the data. Because of this, data could be affected when compared to a data collection under regular working conditions. This would imply the usefulness to reconduct this study in the future where this problem is nonexistent any more.
Practical Implications
The importance of OCB makes this study useful for managers to appeal to as it can help those who seek to increase the amount of OCB performed among its employees. The non-significant results of this study have value for organizations as they can rule out certain possible changes they want to make to their management practices. This can potentially guide the managers in allocating their time and resources to the right advances and not to useless practices in order to reach more OCB. The results of this study showed non-significance in the relation between leader BLM and OCB which could be a good indicator to not focus their attention towards BLM. More specifically, managers should not combine BLM behavior with perfectionistic behavior to try to increase OCB as they might think this would work. For this, more empirical research is needed to check for significant results.
However, on the contrary, organizations should focus on not having perfectionistic leaders while leader BLM is present in the organization since this combination leads to increases in OCB. This significant result from this study gives a good condition (a condition of
low leader perfectionism) to attain when leader BLM is present. Nonetheless, the avoidance of leader BLM is more favorable considering the negative outcomes it has, as has been shown by previous research.
Conclusion
The growing amount of research conducted on the effects of leader BLM have not yet examined the influence it has on follower OCB. Thereby, leader perfectionism has also little presence in previous studies when combining it with these organizational factors. Thus, the present study examined the effect of leader BLM on follower OCB and the moderating role leader perfectionism has on this effect. It was hypothesized that leader BLM would have a negative effect on follower OCB and that this negative effect would be increased when leaders are high in perfectionism. However, the results show that follower OCB was not influenced by leader BLM. Nevertheless, under a condition of low leader perfectionism, leader BLM does stimulate follower OCB. In short, leader BLM does not affect follower OCB, except for a condition with low leader perfectionism where leader BLM positively affects follower OCB. This implies that leader BLM does not always relate to negative consequences only, but avoiding it will always be prioritized.
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Appendices
Section 1. SampleTable 1.1. Frequencies
Section 2. Reliability Analysis
Table 2.1. Reliability BLM
Table 2.3. Reliability Perfectionism
Table 2.4. Reliability Perfectionism Items
Section 3. Correlation Table
Table 3. Correlation Table
Section 4. Assumptions
Figure 4.2. Normality of Residuals BLM
Figure 4.4. Homoscedasticity BLM
Figure 4.5. Homoscedasticity Perfectionism
Section 5. Results
Table 5.1. Model Summary
Table 5.2. Model Significance
Table 5.4. Conditional Effects
