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仁慈領導一定能讓部屬產生組織公民行為嗎？領導者操弄意圖知覺與部屬信任的中介式調節作用
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explore how follower attributions of leader behavior moderate the relationship between
benevolent leadership and followers’ outcomes.
2. Design/Methodology/Approach
This study is based on original data collected with a two-wave survey from full-time
employees in several private businesses in Taiwan. We asked the respondents to evaluate the
leadership behavior of their direct supervisor as well as the level of their trust in the
supervisors, trust in the organizations, OCB, and manipulative intentions of the leaders.
Convenient sampling was used to collect data. The first-wave questionnaire contained
measures of benevolent leadership and demographic variables of respondents, whereas the
second-wave questionnaire was conducted after two to three weeks and contained measures
of perception of leaders’ manipulative intentions, trust in leaders, trust in organizations, and
OCB. In all, 482 employees returned the questionnaire. After removing samples with missing
values, samples that are incomplete or unpaired, and those with the relationship tenure
lasting less than 4 months; a total of 340 valid samples remained.
3. Findings
Drawing on the attribution theory of leadership, subordinates’ attribution of intention
about leaders’ behavior will affect their emotions and behavior. To address the attribution-
consequence process, we hypothesize that perception of leaders’ manipulative intention
moderates the positive relationship between benevolent leadership and trust, (i.e., in
supervisor and organization) as well as OCB. We proposed and tested a mediated moderation
model. The results demonstrated that benevolent leadership is less positively or even
negatively related to trust and OCB when subordinates perceived their leaders as highly
manipulative. In contrast, benevolent leadership was positively related to trust and OCB
when subordinates perceived low manipulative intention. Another finding is that benevolent
leadership is most effective when they interact with the manipulative intention, which the
interaction effect on OCB is partially mediated by trust in supervisor and organization.
4. Research Limitations/Implications
Although this study extended the application of attribution theory and benevolent
leadership theory, it does have several limitations, suggesting future research. First, two-
wave data collection only from subordinates might not avoid common method bias (CMV);