Abstract Based on affective events theory and through 375 valid leader-subordinate paired questionnaires, this study examined the influence of empowering leader behaviors on employee personal initiative and the mediation role of employee hostility as well as the moderation role of employees’ perception of time pressure by using Bootstrap analysis and Monte Carlo simulation. Results suggested that there was no direct relation between empowering leader behaviors and employee personal initiative, but an inverted U-shaped indirect relation between empowering leader behaviors and employee personal initiative via employee hostility. Employees’ perception of time pressure had a significant moderating effect on the U-shaped relation between empowering leader behaviors and employee hostility, namely moderates the mediation role of employee hostility. Specifically, the U-shaped empowering leader behaviors-employee hostility relation and the inverted U-shaped mediation role of employee hostility for employees who perceived higher time pressure were less significant, vice versa. In addition, the above conclusions were confirmed by fsQCA.
SONG Kuntai,ZHANg Shan,DU Pengcheng. A Study of the Nonlinear Influence Mechanism between Empowering Leader Behaviors and Employee Personal Initiative[J]. Chinese Journal of Management, 2022, 19(6): 861-.
