Authentic Leadership and Behavioral Integrity as Drivers of Follower Commitment and Performance

The literatures on both authentic leadership and behavioral integrity have argued that leader integrity drives follower performance. Yet, despite overlap in conceptualization and mechanisms, no research has investigated how authentic leadership and behavioral integrity relate to one another in driving follower performance. In this study, we propose and test the notion that authentic leadership behavior is an antecedent to perceptions of leader behavioral integrity, which in turn affects follower affective organizational commitment and follower work role performance. Analysis of a survey of 49 teams in the service industry supports the proposition that authentic leadership is related to follower affective organizational commitment, fully mediated through leader behavioral integrity. Next, we found that authentic leadership and leader behavioral integrity are related to follower work role performance, fully mediated through follower affective organizational commitment. These relationships hold when controlling for ethical organizational culture.

Team Member’s Centrality, Cohesion, Conflict, and Performance in Multi-University Geographically Distributed Project Teams

This study examined team processes and outcomes among 12 multi-university distributed project teams from 11 universities during its early and late development stages over a 14-month project period. A longitudinal model of team interaction is presented and tested at the individual level to consider the extent to which both formal and informal network connections—measured as degree centrality—relate to changes in team members’ individual perceptions of cohesion and conflict in their teams, and their individual performance as a team member over time. The study showed a negative network centrality-cohesion relationship with significant temporal patterns, indicating that as team members perceive less degree centrality in distributed project teams, they report more team cohesion during the last four months of the project. We also found that changes in team cohesion from the first three months (i.e., early development stage) to the last four months (i.e., late development stage) of the project relate positively to changes in team member performance. Although degree centrality did not relate significantly to changes in team conflict over time, a strong inverse relationship was found between changes in team conflict and cohesion, suggesting that team conflict emphasizes a different but related aspect of how individuals view their experience with the team process. Changes in team conflict, however, did not relate to changes in team member performance. Ultimately, we showed that individuals, who are less central in the network and report higher levels of team cohesion, performed better in distributed teams over time.

[Review of the Book The Challenge of Organizational Change: How Companies Experience It and Leaders Guide It]

[Excerpt] Overall, this book is an important contribution to the organizational studies literature. The Big-Three Model and the case studies supporting it provide new insights regarding the ways in which changes affect individuals and organizations. Further theoretical developments should build on this framework, and incorporate elements of this model into more detailed schemas of change. The authors have exposed many new research questions and provided many lessons for practitioners. I look forward to additional work from them.

An Empirical Analysis of Performance Impacts Resulting From Conversion to Franchise Operations

Franchising is an important form of organizational control. Possible benefits of franchising include its ability to reduce agency costs that increase with costly monitoring, and provide incentives for the use of local information by onsite managers. However, these benefits may come at a cost, as franchisees may reduce quality by choosing to free ride. While many studies have investigated the reasons for franchising, few studies have documented the impacts of franchising on unit level operating performance. Using time-series data from a number of lodging properties that were converted to franchisee control from company control, this study documents the performance impacts of franchising. The analysis reveals that conversion results in a modest decline in financial performance and an immediate sharp decline in quality.

An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships among Climate, Capabilities, and Unit Performance

For the current study, the authors examined the relationships among two dimensions of organizational climate and several indices of individual- and unit-level effectiveness. Specifically, the article proposes that an organization ’s service and training climate would be related to employee capabilities—operationalized in terms of frontline service capabilities and managerial support capabilities—and that such capabilities would be related to unit- level measures of employee turnover and sales growth. Using survey and operational data from 201 management and frontline staff members in 22 units of a national restaurant chain, the results from correlation and regression analyses generally supported the proposed relationships. This study replicates and extends previous research and provides a foundation for future conceptual development and empirical work in this research area.

Only Time Will Tell: The Changing Relationships between LMX, Job Performance, and Justice

Although it has been argued that LMX is a phenomenon that develops over time, the existing LMX literature is largely cross-sectional in nature. Yet, there is a great need for unraveling how LMX develops over time. To address this issue in the LMX literature, we examine the relationships of LMX with two variables known for changing over time: job performance and justice perceptions. On the basis of current empirical findings, a simulation deductively shows that LMX develops over time, but differently in early stages versus more mature stages. Our findings also indicate that performance and justice trends affect LMX. Implications for LMX theory, and for longitudinal research on LMX, performance, and justice are discussed.

Research on Behavioral Integrity: A Promising Construct for Positive Organizational Scholarship

Behavioral integrity (BI) is the perception that another person, group, or entity lives by his word—delivers on promises and enacts the same values he espouses. This construct is more basic than trust or justice, and is typically measured as the perceived pattern of alignment between words and deeds. Empirical studies have shown it to have powerful positive consequences for the attitudes and performance of followers, managers, and organizations, and also that BI moderates the impact of other leader behaviors on these outcomes. Only a few studies have examined antecedents, and fewer still have examined moderated antecedents. Although initial terrain has been sketched out by early studies, there is much yet to learn about the workings of this high-potential construct.