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While previous research underscores the role of leaders in stimulating employee voice behaviour, comparatively little is known about what affects leaders' support for such constructive but potentially threatening employee behaviours. We introduce leader member exchange quality (LMX) as a central predictor of leaders' support for employees' ideas for constructive change. Apart from a general benefit of high LMX for leaders' idea support, we propose that high LMX is particularly critical to leaders' idea support if the idea voiced by an employee constitutes a power threat to the leader. We investigate leaders' attribution of prosocial and egoistic employee intentions as mediators of these effects. Hypotheses were tested in a quasi-experimental vignette study (N = 160), in which leaders evaluated a simulated employee idea, and a field study (N = 133), in which leaders evaluated an idea that had been voiced to them at work. Results show an indirect effect of LMX on leaders' idea support via attributed prosocial intentions but not via attributed egoistic intentions, and a buffering effect of high LMX on the negative effect of power threat on leaders' idea support. Results differed across studies with regard to the main effect of LMX on idea support.
While previous research underscores the role of leaders in stimulating employee voice behaviour, comparatively little is known about what affects leaders' support for such constructive but potentially threatening employee behaviours. We introduce leader member exchange quality (LMX) as a central predictor of leaders' support for employees' ideas for constructive change. Apart from a general benefit of high LMX for leaders' idea support, we propose that high LMX is particularly critical to leaders' idea support if the idea voiced by an employee constitutes a power threat to the leader. We investigate leaders' attribution of prosocial and egoistic employee intentions as mediators of these effects. Hypotheses were tested in a quasi-experimental vignette study (N = 160), in which leaders evaluated a simulated employee idea, and a field study (N = 133), in which leaders evaluated an idea that had been voiced to them at work. Results show an indirect effect of LMX on leaders' idea support via attributed prosocial intentions but not via attributed egoistic intentions, and a buffering effect of high LMX on the negative effect of power threat on leaders' idea support. Results differed across studies with regard to the main effect of LMX on idea support.
Workplace innovations often take the form of making suggestions about small-range improvements, for example, of processes and work procedures. Research on innovation suggests that people holding a novel idea will often consult their peers first in order to gauge their potential approval and support before proposing the idea to formal decision makers. We argue that peer evaluators’ intentions to support an innovative idea depend on the idea’s capacity to satisfy or threaten the evaluator’s achievement motive. Support intentions will be higher if the idea satisfies the evaluators’ achievement motive (idea-motive congruence), and lower if it threatens their achievement motive (idea-motive incongruence); evaluators’ affective response is proposed to mediate this effect. Moreover, the intentions attributed to the idea presenter are proposed to affect peers’ support intentions. The results of two scenario-based experiments (N = 153 and 123) confirm that motive-incongruent implications of an innovative idea, in particular regarding their fear of failure, reduce the likelihood for peers’ support intentions. Results on affective responses were inconsistent across studies, whereas perceiving the idea presenter to hold prosocial intentions was positively related to idea support. Implications for the evaluation of ideas are discussed.
Academic personal initiative (API) has rarely been studied with regard to literacy development. The purpose of this longitudinal study was therefore to examine the unique effects of API on the development of word comprehension as an indicator of word reading. To this end, the effects of previous word comprehension, intrinsic reading motivation, and basic cognitive ability (i.e., processing speed) were controlled for. A total of 1,515 German students participated in a longitudinal assessment starting in Grades 1 to 3, with a second point of measurement nine months later. Latent change score analyses revealed positive associations between API and gains in word comprehension, both in the total sample and at all grade levels. These relations were robust against the effects of previous word comprehension and intrinsic reading motivation. The findings suggest that children play an active role in their own reading development. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Personal initiative
(2017)
Although the effects of personal initiative (PI) on adults' performance and other favorable outcomes are well documented, research has only recently begun to study PI in childhood. This study aimed at examining the development of PI, its predictors, and its developmental effects from childhood to early adolescence. A total of 1,593 German children participated in a longitudinal study starting at Grades 2 to 4, with a second measurement wave two years later. Latent change score analyses revealed that 1) children differed significantly in their change scores of PI, that 2) executive functions and positive parenting predicted change scores in PI, and that 3) high initial levels and change scores in PI reduced the development of internalizing and externalizing problems and supported the development of prosocial behavior and academic competencies. These findings endorse the plasticity of PI and shed light on the active part of children in promoting their own development.
Drawing on research on personal initiative in adults, this paper present the conceptualization of personal initiative in the middle childhood, and the development and validation of an eight-item teacher and parent rating scale of children's and adolescents' personal initiative. The psychometric properties and construct validity of the measure were tested in two samples of children in middle childhood (N = 1069–1657) and middle childhood to adolescence (N = 1533). Both the teacher and parent rating scale showed good item characteristics. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported their hypothesized factorial structure. The agreement of teacher and parent ratings was satisfactory. Evidence on the construct validity of the scale was further derived from a nomological network comprising control cognitions, motivational orientations, and cognitive ability. The measures proved to be invariant across school years and raters. We discuss several avenues for future research on personal initiative in the fields of development and education.