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Carrot or Stick? The Role of In-Group/Out-Group on the Multilevel Relationship Between Authoritarian and Differential Leadership and Employee Turnover Intention

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop an integrative model linking the effect of authoritarian leadership (at the individual level) and differential leadership (at the team level) on employee turnover intention, and further explore the moderating role of the in-group/out-group on the above-mentioned relationships. We collected a sample of 624 supervisor–subordinate dyads from 87 teams in Mainland China and Taiwan. We find that, at the individual level, authoritarian leadership is positively related with employee turnover intention, and the relationship will be enhanced especially when the subordinate is an in-group member (rather than an out-group member). Through hierarchical linear modeling analysis, we find a negative relationship between differential leadership and employee turnover intention, significantly moderated by the within-team mean degree and the within-team variance degree of in-group/out-group. Contributions, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Section Editor Alexander Newman and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on this article. This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71402019, 71402164, 71572060, 71271046), the National Social Science Foundation of China (11&ZD153), Program for Liaoning Excellent Talents in University (WJQ2015013), and Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (104-2410-H-035-038-).

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  1. School of Business Administration, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, No. 217 JianShan St., Shahekou District, Dalian, 116025, People’s Republic of China

    Lei Wang

  2. Department of Business Administration, Feng Chia University, No. 100 Wenhwa Rd., Seatwen District, Taichung, 40724, Taiwan

    Meng-Yu Cheng

  3. School of Management, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, Xingzheng Building 801-4, Xihu District, Hangzhou, 310058, People’s Republic of China

    Song Wang

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  1. Lei Wang
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Wang, L., Cheng, MY. & Wang, S. Carrot or Stick? The Role of In-Group/Out-Group on the Multilevel Relationship Between Authoritarian and Differential Leadership and Employee Turnover Intention. J Bus Ethics 152, 1069–1084 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3299-z

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