Content uploaded by Andrea Derler
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Andrea Derler on Jul 07, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
The ideal employee: context and
leaders’ implicit follower theories
Andrea Derler and Ju
¨rgen Weibler
Department of Business Administration and Economics,
University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between leaders’ work context
and their prototypical implicit follower theo ries ( pIFT). The authors assume a dual str ucture of pIFT
and argue that leader preferences for certain employee traits and behaviours are influenced by their
perception of the prevailing market conditions and organizational coordination mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach – This study was conducted via an online-questionnaire with 182
US leaders from different industries. It surveyed leader’s preferences for abstract and specific employee
traits and behaviours, as well as their perceptions of the explorative and exploitative elements in their
work context. To test for associations of corresponding variables representing leaders’ context and
their employee prototype, data analysis was performed via multiple linear regression analysis.
Findings – The paper provides evidence for associations between leaders’ pIFT and their work
context. The data suggest that leaders who perceive their organizational work environment as
formalized consider Enthusiasm ( p¼0.003) and the pursuit of exploitative activities ( p¼0.023) as
important employee characteristics, and those who experience the market conditions as dynamic show
a preference for Good Citizenship behaviours ( p¼0.027) and the search for explorative activities
(p¼0.034). In terms of control variables the authors found that more mature leaders favour both
exploration and exploitation in employees, while managers of larger teams emphasize exploitation
in their pIFT.
Research limitations/implications – The study was conducted with leaders in the USA; results
are cross-sectional and representative for for-profit organizations. Potential limitations arise from a
lack of generalizability of the results to others forms of organizations, cultures and work settings.
Practical implications – The paper provides the outline of an “ideal employee profile” for the
leaders in the sample and describes potential implications of pIFT for organizational strategy relating
to personnel-related decisions.
Originality/value – This study provides the first empirical link between leaders’ ideal employee
image and work context, and enables a deeper understanding of the structure and content of pIFT.
Keywords Leadership, Exploitation, Context effects, Exploration, Prototype,
Implicit follower theories
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Studies about implicit follower theories (IFT) are experiencing a renaissance in
leadership research. Generally, implicit theories are cognitive schemas, or organized
patterns of thought that simplify information processing (Lord and Maher, 1994) by
guiding and enabling our perceptions and judgments of other people on the basis of
prototypes (Hall et al., 1998). IFT describe assumptions and folk theories about follower
characteristics, better described as “naı
¨ve theories about the way people imagine
a typical follower to be” (Sy, 2010). Leaders’ implicit theories about followers are
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7739.htm
Received 7 December 2012
Revised 3 May 2013
22 July 2013
Accepted 23 July 2013
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
Vol. 35 No. 5, 2014
pp. 386-409
rEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-7739
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-12-2012-0158
Specials thanks go to Tonatiuh Barrientos Gutierrez for providing statistical expertise and
continued support in writing this paper. The authors also would like to thank Tobias Keller and
two anonymous reviewers for their comments which helped us to significantly improve the
quality of the article.
386
LODJ
35,5
important elements in the leader-follower relationship (Shondrick and Lord, 2010;
van Gils et al., 2010) and historically, we can find a variety of approaches to this
phenomenon (Fiedler, 1964; Miles, 1964; McGregor, 1966; Shondrick and Lord, 2010).
To date we find a handful of empirical studies about IFT. Some provide important
insights into the structure and content of prototypical and anti-prototypical IFT
(Whiteley et al., 2012; Sy, 2010; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971); others show that
leaders’ follower schemas can affect their judgment as well as treatment of followers
(Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999). We learned from previous research that IFT held by leaders
can have positive and negative effects on the leader-follower relationship. For example,
Whiteley et al. (2012) investigated positive associations between naturally occurring
Pygmalion effects or positive IFT and follower performance, showing that positive
leader expectations towards employees can positively improve their performance
outcomes. However, leader’s implicit theories can also have adverse effects.
Categorization theorists have consistently pointed out that leaders might rely more
on their IFT rather than actual, observed employee behaviours (Lord and Maher, 1994;
Shondrick and Lord, 2010). In other words, in case of a mismatch between leaders’ IFT
and actually perceived employee characteristics, leaders might develop a bias that
could potentially lead to erroneous and destructive personnel decisions in performance
reviews or recruiting situations (Sanders, 1999). In summary, the relevance of leaders’
mental schemas or employee prototypes is reasonably well documented in the
literature and previous studies provide important insights about the structure, content
and potential impact of leaders’ IFT. However, despite frequent acknowledgements
about the role of context in the development of implicit theories (Shondrick and Lord,
2010; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004; Lord et al., 2001a) none of the existing studies about
IFT (Whiteley et al., 2012; Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971)
considered the role of work context, or leaders’ perceptions thereof, as influencing factor
on the emergence of leaders’ employee schemas. For example, it is unknown if and to
what degree leaders’ perception of the prevailing market conditions surrounding their
organizations, or the coordination mechanisms directing their work from within their
organizations, may influence the development of their prototypical implicit follower
theories (pIFT). With the present paper we address this gap and contribute to the field
of leadership research in the following ways.
First, we respond to the demand in leadership research for a greater consideration
of the social and organizational context in which leadership is embedded (DeRue, 2011;
Yukl, 2009; Liden and Antonakis, 2009; Avolio, 2007). In our investigation of contextual
effects on IFT we follow the interactionist approach that proposes the confinement
of individual action through situational characteristics in the work environment
(Meyer et al., 2009). In other words, we investigated if different types of external and
organizational configurations determine the criteria that render certain employee traits
and behaviours more effective than others and thereby inform and mould the content
of leaders’ IFT. Second, we extend existing theory about the structure of IFT and offer
supporting evidence for the interdependencies between context and the content of
leaders’ pIFT. Finally, considering the relevance of IFT for personnel related decisions,
our study serves a practical purpose by providing new insights for organizations as
well as future endeavours in occupational research informing public policy decisions.
For example, extended knowledge about potential contextual effects on managers’
employee prototypes can enable further research in respect to employers’ decision-
making processes, as well as their perceptions of employability, or bias affecting their
selection decisions (Hogan et al., 2013).
387
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
This paper is organized as follows: First, we provide a short outline of the theoretical
foundations about the structure of IFT and our approach in studying organizational
context effects. Second, we outline our hypotheses in respect to contextual influences
on different levels of leaders’ follower categorizations, and present a detailed account of
our empirical study and the main results. Finally, we discuss our findings within
the scope of our study, we describe its contributions and limitations before offering
conclusions and future directions.
2. The dual structure of pIFT
In contrast to a neutral view on employee characteristics or central tendency
prototypes that describe “how followers are”, we took a goal-derived perspective
on “how followers should be” (Sy, 2010) and investigated what we call leaders’ pIFT.
Our intention was thereby not to discover a “follower blueprint” as critically seen by
Collinson (2006), or to pursue an “ideal configuration of person attributes” (Cottrell
et al., 2007) for the perfect employee role. Instead, our intent was to show that parts of
leaders’ pIFT emerge in response to a context that is constituted by a relatively specific
configuration of task and behavioural cues and pressures. However, we believe that
only certain aspects of leaders’ employee prototype is context-sensitive as they are
formed in response to leaders’ individual work setting; others might be independent
of context because they are abstract and universally valid for leaders in most
leadership settings.
Existing studies concerned with prototypical qualities of either followers (Crossman
and Crossman, 2011; Sy, 2010) or leaders (Den Hartog et al., 1999) circumvent the
inclusion of specific contextual effects and mostly addressed person categories on
the superordinate, or abstract level. For example, we know that leaders’ prototypical
employee traits encompass being “hardworking”, “reliable” and “loyal” (Wernimont,
1971; Sy, 2010). However, the universality of these traits renders these findings equally
descriptive of many other ideal person categorizations other than followers (Cottrell
et al., 2007) and raises new questions about their variability. Most importantly, they do
not explain individual variations in leaders’ IFT and how these requirements relate
to their respective work environments. We made an attempt to find answers to these
questions by investigating the structure and content of IFT to identify differences in
employee prototypes dependent on leaders’ work settings.
In a first step, we integrated concepts from categorization theory and split leaders’
pIFT into two hierarchical levels on the basis of their variation in context sensitivity.
This allows us to study leaders’ pIFT at the abstract level and the specific level and to
investigate the impact of work context on each of them. Research on IFT goes back
to Rosch (1978), whose work on categorization theory provides the foundation for our
understanding of the way individuals perceive and structure incoming information
about others. According to this theory, we encounter so many impressions about the
world every day that we need to cognitively categorize others by ways of mental
shortcuts. This involves trying to match them with existing cognitive categories that
have developed around a prototype, for example “follower” or “leader” (for a review see
Shondrick and Lord, 2010). Prototypes or categories are arranged hierarchically in
several levels (Shondrick and Lord, 2010; Lord et al., 2001b; Lord and Maher, 1994).
As, applied to the prototypical follower, we assumed that the highest category level
corresponds to abstract types (e.g. “follower” vs “non-follower”), while the lower
category levels refer to more specific categories (“good follower” vs “bad follower”).
Depending on the cascading level of abstraction, context information and prototype are
388
LODJ
35,5
more and more interwoven because the more contextual constraints that are taken
into account, the more specific the prototype becomes (Medvedeff and Lord, 2007).
Accordingly, the highest category level describes leaders’ most generally desired
employee traits, that is, at the abstract or superordinate category level, while the lower
category level refers to context-sensitive aspects, or specific/basic category level.
In other words, traits that describe an ideal, prototypical follower on the abstract
level are more likely to be desired in a large variety of contexts, while those on the
specific category level will vary substantially.
3. Contextual effects on pIFT
The term context describes a “situational setting in which workplace phenomena
occur” ( Joshi and Roh, 2009). Connectionist models about implicit theories include
contextual influences such as tasks, hierarchical level, national culture, age, tenure,
experience and gender factors ( Johnson et al., 2008; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004). They
hold that individuals’ implicit theories keep being redeveloped through diverse
situational restraints (Smothers et al., 2011; Shondrick and Lord, 2010; Medvedeff and
Lord, 2007; Lord and Emrich, 2001) because they are “evoked rather than found”
(Hanges et al., 2000). However, despite the fact that context is an often mentioned factor
in organizational behaviour research in general (Uhl-Bien and Pillai, 2007; Johns, 2006)
but particularly in respect to implicit leader and follower theories (Shondrick and Lord,
2010; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004; Lord et al., 2001a), empirical research on the impact
of contextual restraints on implicit theories is rare. So far, only Smothers et al. (2011)
offered first insights into context-specific differences in implicit leader theories with
their study about conceptualizations and traits of ideal leaders in private and public
universities. In order to close the gap in the current literature about IFT which all but
omits the inclusion of contextual factors on the development of IFT (Whiteley et al.,
2012; Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971) we built a theoretical
framework that allows the establishment of meaningful associations between market
environment, organizational setting and leaders’ preferences for certain employee
qualities.
Exploration and exploitation
To study the effect of context there is a variety of ways to categorize work settings.
Occupation, industry classification ( Joshi and Roh, 2009), branches of trade or
organizational culture models are examples for variables we considered. However, due
to the multifaceted nature of today’s organizations we discarded initial considerations
of context variables such as industry or occupation because even intraindustry variation
could have presented interfering factors in the analysis of associations between context
and leaders’ pIFT. Our search for more fundamental working principles that could apply
to a large variety of work settings resulted in the literature about exploration and
exploitation, two working modes with a long history in management research.
Exploration and exploitation activities emerge as organizations try to adapt to
the changing constraints of the environment (Van de Ven et al., 2013); in order
to survive, organizations need to utilize both the “exploration of new possibilities and
the exploitation of old certainties” (March, 1991) in a structural and contextual manner
(Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; Gupta et al., 2006). This drives processes and decision
making by organization members to simultaneously pursue a search for new, and a
reliance on existing knowledge (Posen and Levinthal, 2011). Forty years ago, Drucker
(1974) defined two working modes that later became exploration and exploitation
389
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
(Raisch et al., 2009; Mom et al., 2007; March, 1991). He described innovative work as
“creating effectively and purposefully the new and the different”, and operational work
as “managing what is already in existence and known, building it, exploiting its
potential, taking care of its problems” (Drucker, 1974). These two working modes are
suitable context variables for the purpose of this study because they present essential
types of activities that are inherent to a large variety of markets, organizations and
individual actions ( Jansen et al., 2006), and can be studied across industries, organizational
cultures or task orientations.
Exploration activities are related to the creation of new knowledge, products,
services, markets or customers. Exploitation, on the other hand, describes the
utilization of existing information, products, services, clients and markets ( Jansen et al.,
2006). In order to survive, organizations need to utilize both the “exploration of new
possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties” (March, 1991) in a structural and
contextual manner (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; Gupta et al., 2006). The comprehensive
nature of exploration and exploitation allows an application on several levels of
analysis, because the tension field of renewal and preservation exists in decision-making
processes, routine and non-routine activities, as well as managers’ collective and creative
actions (Mom et al., 2009). The topic of contextual antecedents of organizational processes
and individual action is well-established in the literature of exploration and exploitation
(Weibler and Keller, 2011; Jansen et al., 2006; Zahra and Bogner, 1999; Dill, 1958).
For example, the origin of the context variables encompassing market conditions can
be traced back to Dill (1958) who defined managers’ task environment as “inputs of
information from external sources” such as customers, suppliers, competitors and
regulatory groups (Dill, 1958). When the term task environment experienced further
differentiation into environmental dynamic and environmental competitiveness
( Jansen et al., 2006), it began to denote explorative and exploitative aspects of
influences external to organizations (Market dynamism and Market Competitiveness,
respectively). Further, coordination mechanisms refer to the formal structure of an
organization, particularly ways in which rules and guidelines prescribe managers’
tasks and decision-making processes (Mom et al., 2009). Besides strategy and culture,
organizational structure is one of three “key organizational assets” (Zheng et al., 2010).
The choice of structural variables in our assessment of leaders’ inner-organizational
work context is based on its comparatively permanent, visible character and the
direct effects of task configuration on managerial activities (Zheng et al., 2010).
Organizational strategy and culture would provide equally interesting context
variables for this study; however they also add additional heterogeneity amongst
leaders’ assessment of work contexts through the dynamic of outside markets and
differing values and norms and have been excluded as potential context variables for
the current study. Furthermore, structural antecedents such as de-/centralization
for facilitating of knowledge management as well as innovation and creativity have
been widely studied as important mechanisms in the coordination of managerial
activities geared towards creativity and efficiency (Zheng et al., 2010; Mom et al., 2009).
In summary, we based our approach to the evaluation of leaders’ work context on the
notion that exploration and exploitation are expressions of divergent organizational
processes (Hotho and Champion, 2010; Gupta et al., 2006; He and Wong, 2004; Benner
and Tushman, 2003). Leaders might perceive external market conditions as either
rather dynamic (explorative) or more competitive (exploitative), and the coordination
mechanisms either more decentralized (explorative) or formalized (exploitative) and
define the specific category level of their pIFT accordingly.
390
LODJ
35,5
In addition to considering the tension between exploration and exploitation, or
creativity and efficiency, on the system level (March, 1991) of market conditions
and coordination mechanisms, we used them on the individual level of analysis by
specifying explorative and exploitative aspects of their employee prototype. Thereby
we take into account that individuals may encounter difficulties when trying to excel at
both (Gupta et al., 2006), and assume a natural tendency in individuals for the pursuit
of either explorative or exploitative work behaviours. In support of our argument that
context influences work behaviour, we refer to work by Weibler and Keller (2011) who
found positive correlations between leaders’ perception of the work environment
and their own pursuit of exploration and exploitation activities. The authors showed
in their study that leaders who perceived the market conditions as dynamic tend to
pursue explorative activities; they explained this finding by positing that leaders’
attempt to adapt to the perceived task requirements of a fast changing work context
that requires creativity and innovation. If we accept the argument that leaders
are positioned in a specific task environment or “problem space” (Lord, 1976)
evoking certain explorative and/or exploitative work behaviours (Gibson and
Birkinshaw, 2004; Mom et al., 2007; Gupta et al., 2006), we assume that their ideal
employee schemas follow such an orientation. Here we rely on studies which show
that the nature of tasks is an influencing factor in the development of implicit
theories as well as person and leadership perceptions (Crossman and Crossman,
2011; van Gils et al., 2010; Cottrell et al., 2007; Zaccaro et al., 1991; Fiedler, 1964). Since
leaders hold prototypical implicit theories about followers not only on the basis
of what or who they should be but also on the basis of what they expect them to do,
we found justification for the argument that work and task environment can
determine leaders’ preference for either explorative or exploitative work behaviours
in their pIFT.
4. Hypotheses building
As we see it, leaders’ pIFT have an inherently dual structure. The abstract level of
leaders’ pIFT refers to leaders’ preference for employee traits that are relatively
independent of context; we assume them to be shared by a larger variety of leaders
in many different work contexts. Prominent examples of the abstract level of leaders’
IFT are qualities such as “hardworking”, “loyal” and “productive” as found by Sy
(2010) and Wernimont (1971). The specific category level of pIFT, on the other hand,
represents employee behaviours that show individual level differences in their
relevance to leaders. For instance, depending on work context and task requirements,
leaders’ employee prototype might consist of work behaviours related to creativity and
innovation, as opposed to efficiency or routine oriented work activities. This notion
of a dual structure of pIFT corresponds to similar concepts in the history of leader’s
IFT. For example, Fiedler’s (1964) typology of the least preferred co-worker posits that
managers recognize favourable aspects even in “poor” co-workers (“Even if I can’t
work with him, he may still be a very nice and valuable person”), hinting at a personal
and a functional level of the way managers think of subordinates. Equally, Beehr et al.
(1994) described an entity aspect (“liking people for what they are”) and a functional
aspect (“ways that the subordinate behaves that might be preferred and expected”) to
the leader-follower relationship, and Engle and Lord (1997) saw leader’s consideration
of subordinates as expression of perceived attitudinal similarity and implicit
performance theories with them. Hence, our approach in the present study is based on
the idea that leaders’ pIFT are made up of desired traits (“what employees ideally are”)
391
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
referring to the abstract category level, and desired behaviours (“what employees
ideally do”) on the specific category level.
As organizations are embedded in a broader social system (Gupta et al., 2006) they
are strongly affected by the prevailing market conditions. Environmental aspects that
influence organizational innovation and performance were classified by Jansen et al.
(2006) into environmental dynamic and competitiveness. Characteristics of dynamic
market conditions are changing customer needs, technologies and product demands
requiring the development of new products and services as much as the instability of
the environment and the unpredictability of change (Dess and Beard, 1984). In response
to these conditions, organization members in dynamic market environments are
required to pursue explorative activities (Weibler and Keller, 2011), such as the
reduction of these insecurities through the search for new information. Competitive
market conditions, on the other hand, feature a number of competitors and areas of
competition that create great pressures in respect to efficiency, lower prices and tighter
margins, requiring organization members to become experts of existing technologies,
products and services in order to increase routine tasks and boost efficiency (Weibler
and Keller, 2011).
Apart from the market conditions surrounding an organization, work context is also
constituted by organizational coordination mechanisms, where decentralization
and formalization represent a prominent focus. Formalization and decentralization
describe internal formal structures that serve in the organizational ( Jansen et al.,
2006) as well in the individual (Mom et al., 2009) coordination of work activities.
Decentralization refers to the degree to which organizations delegate decision
responsibilities to their units and to which, therefore, leaders have decision-making
authority to pursue goals and solve problems within different organizational levels
(Mom et al., 2009; Dewar et al., 1980). Increased decentralization has been found to
encourage innovation and other explorative activities in organization members,
because it stimulates the awareness and willingness to pursue a wider array of
opportunities to focus on long-term goals ( Jansen et al., 2006; Mom et al., 2009).
In contrast, the formalization of tasks refers to decision-making guidelines within
organizations that stress existing rules and regulations, and the expectation for
leaders to conform to these guidelines (Mom et al., 2009). High formalization: lessens
the pursuit of different opportunities by individuals as they depend greater on formal
systems, requires a focus on short-term goals, and has been found to inhibit
exploration activities ( Jansen et al., 2006).
In this study, we pursued the question of whether leaders’ perception of the work
context, constituted by the prevailing market conditions surrounding their organizations
and the coordination mechanisms within their organizations, affects the abstract and
specific category level of their employee prototype. We look at employee traits on the
abstract category level of leaders’ pIFT as less context sensitive, generally valid and
relevant to leaders regardless of their work context and constructed the following
hypotheses:
H1. Leaders will rate employee traits and behaviours on the abstract category level
of their pIFT equally between all context conditions. In other words, there will
be no significant associations between leaders’ perception of either market
dynamic or competition and their’ preference for any of the abstract employee
trait groups, nor between their perception of decentralization or formalization,
and these trait groups.
392
LODJ
35,5
Contents of pIFT on the specific category level, on the other hand, are assumed to be
context-sensitive and moulded by the tension systems or force fields of situational
opportunities and constraints that organizational leaders are operating under ( Johns,
2006). Hence, we argue that leaders’ perception of explorative (dynamic, decentralized)
and exploitative (competitive, formalized) work contexts will elicit corresponding
preferences for explorative or exploitative employee traits and work behaviours on the
specific but not on the abstract level:
H2a. Leaders who perceive prevailing market conditions as dynamic will describe
the specific category level of their pIFT in explorative terms.
H2b. Leaders who perceive organizational coordination mechanisms as decentralized
will describe the specific category level of their pIFT in explorative terms.
Adversely, leaders operating in competitive markets and/or formalized coordination
mechanisms were expected to emphasize the exploitative aspects of their pIFT and
highlight employee behaviours such as focusing on routine activities, providing existing
clients with existing products and services, relying on his or her experience and existing
knowledge and pursuing activities with a short-term goal (Mom et al., 2009):
H3a. Leaders who perceive prevailing market conditions as competitive will
describe the specific category level of their pIFT in exploitative terms.
H3b. Leaders who perceive organizational coordination mechanisms as formalized
will describe the specific category level of their pIFT in exploitative terms.
5. Method, materials and measures
Participants
A total of 442 leaders were invited to participate in this study and 182 surveys were
completed, providing a response rate of 41.2 per cent. Participants, 142 men and 40
women, worked in for-profit companies in North America in a variety of different
business units (engineering 33 per cent, finance 12.6 per cent, human resources 9.9 per
cent, operations 13.2 per cent, purchasing 7.7 per cent, other 23.6 per cent). The industries
represented in this sample are manufacturing, food services, retail trade, information,
professional, scientific and technical services, healthcare, as well as entertainment and
recreation. The average age was 45.4 years and all participants worked in active
leadership roles at various levels (C-level 9.9 per cent, top management 6 per cent,
senior management 22 per cent, middle management 43.4 per cent, associate managers
7.7 per cent, supervisors 11 per cent) and had an average leadership experience of 14.7 years
(Table I). The questionnaire was administered to all participants via email linking to a
secure online survey and participant names were kept anonymous to ensure confidentiality.
We used validated constructs and corresponding measures from the literature
with minor semantic adaptations. We tested all constructs for internal consistency
and obtained satisfying results (Cronbach’s a, Table I). All items were responded to on
a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to strongly agree (7).
Independent variables
To capture leaders’ perception of the market conditions we used an existing
typology of environmental dynamism and environmental competitiveness according to
393
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1. Market dynamism 5.22 0.86 (0.65)
2. Market competitiveness 5.44 1.31 0.534** (0.91)
3. Decentralization 5.77 1.21 0.203** 0.027 (0.93)
4. Formalization 3.95 1.24 0.098 0.005 0.024 (0.78)
5. Exploration 5.17 0.7 0.215** 0.171* 0.051 0.145 (0.74)
6. Exploitation 5.12 0.75 0.166* 0.105 0.052 0.179* 0.306** (0.81)
7. Industriousness 6.18 0.8 0.185* 0.095 0.046 0.004 0.252** 0.321** (0.72)
8. Enthusiasm 5.43 0.73 0.047 0.006 0.037 0.239** 0.320** 0.281** 0.036 (0.61)
9. Good Citizenship 6.3 0.66 0.263** 0.223** 0.017 0.191** 0.250** 0.404** 0.414** 0.177* (0.71)
10. Gender 1.22 0.42 0.000 0.129 0.110 0.128 0.033 0.093 0.135 0.068 0.179*
11. Age 45.4 8.72 0.006 0.199** 0.070 0.118 0.138 0.013 0.078 0.120 0.087 0.235**
12. Leadership experience 14.66 7.60 0.074 0.055 0.065 0.029 0.050 0.128 0.053 0.064 0.017 0.099 0.612**
13. Team size 15.15 11.22 0.036 0.024 0.072 0.132 0.099 0.144 0.099 0.034 0.092 0.161* 0.092 0.029 –
Notes: n¼182. Numbers in parentheses on the diagonal are Cronbach’s aof the composite scales. **po0.01; *po0.05, two-tailed
Tabl e I.
Means, standard
deviations and
correlations
394
LODJ
35,5
Jansen et al. (2006). Coordination mechanisms were measured with decentralization
and formalization according to Mom et al. (2009) (Appendix 1).
Dependent variables
In order to measure the importance of certain traits and work behaviours for their
employee prototype (“ideal employee”), leaders rated two sets of qualities. For the
abstract level of their pIFT, this study used all nine traits of pIFT as identified by Sy
(2010), subsequently rated individually by leaders, and arranged by us in the three trait
groups: Industriousness (originally termed “Industry” and encompassing “hardworking”,
“productive”, “goes above and beyond”), Enthusiasm (“excited”, “outgoing”, “happy”)
and Good Citizen (“loyal”, “reliable”, “team player”). For the specific category level, we
used and adapted a typology by Mom et al. (2009) that measures explorative and
exploitative work-related activities in relation to leaders’ prototypical employee
(Appendix 2).
Control variables
As several authors studying implicit leader theories have posited an influence of
gender ( Johnson et al., 2008; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004), age (Sy, 2010; Epitropaki
and Martin, 2004) and leadership experience (Whiteley et al., 2012; Shondrick and Lord,
2010; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004; Lord et al., 2001a; Lord and Emrich, 2001; Keller,
1999; Sanders, 1999; Borman, 1987; Miles, 1964; Shondrick et al., 2010), we controlled
for these variables in our study. We also added team size as control variable.
As leaders’ span of control varies with the number of subordinates they manage, their
handling of coordination mechanisms changes (Kieser and Walgenbach, 2010), which
in turn might affect their preference for certain employee traits and behaviours.
6. Analysis and results
Descriptive statistics
Table I shows means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations of all dependent
and independent research variables. In regards to the context variables we see that
market dynamism and market competitiveness are highly correlated (r¼0.534), a
finding that is not surprising since complex interdependencies in the market environment
bring about heightened competitive as well as dynamic pressures for organizational
leaders. Wilcoxon tests[1] were conducted to evaluate leaders’ perceptions of differences
in the work context variables and their preferences for employee traits and behaviours
(Appendix 3). Results indicated a significant difference (z¼2.792; p¼0.001) between
the perception of dynamic and competitive market conditions with the mean of ranks
in favour of market competitiveness (96.78), and the mean of ranks in favour of market
dynamism (77.61).
In respect to the specific category level of leaders’ pIFT results show correlations
between a preference for exploration and exploitation (z¼0.859; p¼0.39), pointing
at a balanced preference for both explorative and exploitative behaviours. A comparison
of specific and abstract employee traits shows that traits encompassing Industriousness,
Enthusiasm and Good Citizenship were rated higher by leaders than those referring
to exploration and exploitation. Noticeable was the difference between exploration
and Good Citizenship (z¼10.958; po0.001) with the mean ranks favouring Good
Citizenship (93.47) in comparison to exploration in (25.11). A comparison of all three
abstract trait categories with each other revealed that the sub-category Enthusiasm was
ranked significantly lower than Industriousness and Good Citizenship behaviour
395
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
(po0.01). On this basis we conclude that traits such as exciting, outgoing and happy are
seen as less important to leaders than being hardworking, productive, loyal, etc., however
they are still rated as more important than explorative and exploitative behaviours.
Insignificant bivariate correlations between control variables age and leadership
experience with exploration and exploitation show patterns that were confirmed in
subsequent regression models, but seem to be obscured by statistical noise. For example,
age is insignificantly correlated with exploration ( r¼0.138) and negatively with
exploitation, but show significant positive associations in subsequent regression models
(Table III). Since these relationships were measured concurrently and we cannot rely on
historical data involving these variables, we interpret this dynamic with a succeeding
adjustment with other factors.
Other bivariate correlations are highly suggestive of associations later found in
regression analysis results: market dynamism and exploration are significantly
correlated ( po0.01), and so are formalization and exploitation ( po0.05); in regards
to abstract employee traits we see that leaders in dynamic markets consider
Industriousness and Good Citizenship as important employee traits, while
formalized organizational contexts ask for Enthusiasm and Good Citizenship
behaviours. Bivariate correlations between control and research variables show
associations between gender and Good Citizenship ( po0.05), suggesting that female
leaders consider loyalty, reliability and team playing abilities more relevant in
employees than male leaders.
Inferential statistics
Tables II and III show the results of our statistical models performed via multiple
linear regression analysis. All independent variables were tested for potential
multicollinearity problems but with values between 1.13 and 3.18 for the
variance inflation factor they stayed well below the acceptable cut-off of 10 (Neter
et al., 1996).
Abstract category level of leaders’ pIFT
Table II shows associations between the main context variables (market conditions,
coordination mechanisms) and leaders’ preference for the abstract trait categories
Industriousness, Enthusiasm and Good Citizenship behaviour in employees. H1 which
stated that there will be no significant associations between context variables and
leaders’ rating of abstract employee traits was rejected. First, Good Citizenship
behaviours seem to be important to leaders operating in dynamic market conditions
and formalized organizational settings ( po0.05); in other words, leaders in both
explorative and exploitative types of work contexts appreciate loyal, reliable team
players (models 1, 2 and 3). Industriousness, on the other hand, expressing traits such
as hardworking, productive, goes above and beyond, are particularly important to
leaders in dynamic markets (model 1), while Enthusiasm (excited, outgoing, happy) is
relevant for managers particularly in formalized contexts (model 2, p¼0.003).
Other notable associations were found between the control variables gender and age
with Good Citizenship; accordingly, being a female leader ( p¼0.01) and of higher
age ( p¼0.019) was strongly related to a preference of Good Citizenship in employees.
We conclude that, although these findings are contrary to our initial understanding of
the universal desirability of abstract employee traits, they support our main research
argument that leaders’ perception of work context could indeed play a role in the
formation of their implicit employee prototype.
396
LODJ
35,5
Industriousness (b) Enthusiasm (b) Good citizenship (b)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Research variables
Market conditions
Market dynamic 0.188* 0.18 0.044 0.012 0.215* 0.195*
Market competition 0.025 0.022 0 0.013 0.096 0.104
Coordination mechanisms
Decentralization 0.084 0.46 0.024 0.021 0.048 0.001
Formalization 0.026 0.041 0.227** 0.225** 0.182* 0.165*
Confounders
Gender
Male Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Female 0.137 0.146 0.146 0.021 0.005 0.007 0.0208** 0.18* 0.195*
Age (years) 0.143 0.13 0.14 0.134 0.105 0.108 0.208* 0.247* 0.225*
Leadership experience (years) 0.032 0.006 0.027 0.022 0.013 0.013 0.145 0.143 0.153
Team size
Small (1-10) Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Medium (11-29) 0.063 0.085 0.071 0.033 0.047 0.049 0.019 0.032 0.006
Large (30 and more) 0.088 0.107 0.095 0.039 0.058 0.06 0.049 0.06 0.032
R
2
0.067 0.043 0.07 0.018 0.067 0.067 0.133 0.092 0.158
SE 0.78 0.79 0.78 0.73 0.71 0.72 0.63 0.64 0.62
Notes: n¼182. b, standardized coefficients. *po0.05; **po0.01
Table II.
Contextual influences
on leaders’ emphasis on
the abstract category
level of their pIFT
397
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
Specific category level of leaders’ pIFT
Table III shows associations between the main context variables (market conditions,
coordination mechanisms) and leaders’ preference for the specific employee behaviours
represented by exploration and exploitation. Model 1 for exploration and exploitation,
respectively, show results in respect to the effect of market conditions on leaders’
preference for explorative and exploitative employee behaviours. In line with H2a we
found positive and significant associations between dynamic market conditions and
exploration (b¼0.188, p¼0.034).
Competitive market conditions, however, did not lead to leaders’ desire for
exploitation in team members leading us to reject H3a. Model 2 represent relationships
between coordination mechanisms and the dependent variables; we found that
decentralization had no effect on leaders’ preference for exploration (H2b). Formalization,
on the other hand, is associated with exploration (b¼0.152, p¼0.044) and exploitation
(b¼0.169, p¼0.023) at first, with effects on exploration dropping below significance
(b¼0.139, p¼0.065) in model 3. Finally, model 3 present results in respect to all
context variables in their combined effects on leaders’ preferences for exploration and
exploitation. The association between dynamic market conditions and exploration
dropped below a level of significance (b¼0.162, p¼0.075), and so did the relationship
between formalization and exploration (b¼0.139, p¼0.065). Therefore, the most
robust association amongst our research variables appears between formalization and
exploitation in employees (b¼0.159, p¼0.033), thereby confirming H3b.Lookingat
the control variables we found that with increasing age, leaders consistently favour
both exploration ( p¼0.022) and exploitation ( p¼0.043); greater leadership experience,
on the other hand, leads to leaders’ reduced interest in exploitative employee work
behaviours ( p¼0.005). The significant association between team size and exploitative
Exploration (b) Exploitation (b)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Research variables
Market conditions
Market dynamic 0.188* 0.162 0.159 0.129
Market competition 0.02 0.03 0.012 0
Coordination mechanisms
Decentralization 0.07 0.034 0.068 0.04
Formalization 0.152* 0.139 0.169* 0.159*
Confounders
Gender
Male Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Female 0.034 0.021 0.028 0.065 0.055 0.057
Age (in years) 0.212* 0.232* 0.228* 0.18 0.196* 0.199*
Leadership experience
(in years) 0.115 0.106 0.119 0.262** 0.254** 0.267**
Team size
Small (1-10) Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Medium (11-29) 0.008 0.002 0.015 0.102 0.106 0.094
Large (430) 0.128 0.133 0.116 0.191* 0.188* 0.178*
R
2
0.081 0.07 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.12
SE 0.68 0.68 0.67 0.72 0.72 0.72
Notes: n¼182. b, standardized coefficients. *po0.05; **po0.01
Table III.
Contextual influences
on manager’s emphasis
on exploration and
exploitation in employees
398
LODJ
35,5
employee behaviours (b¼0.178, p¼0.028) indicates that leaders of larger teams
consider exploitation activities in employees as more important than explorative work
behaviours.
7. Discussion
The principal results of the present study can be summarized as follows: in contrast
to our initial expectations, leaders’ work context does not only influence the specific
category level of their pIFT but also the abstract level. In other words, leaders’
perceptions of certain aspects in the market conditions and coordination mechanisms
surrounding their daily work routines seem to affect not only their preference for
certain employee behaviours but also for certain employee traits. For example, dynamic
market conditions are associated with explorative behaviours and traits referring to
Industriousness and Good Citizenship; formalization is related to explorative and
exploitative behaviours, as well as Enthusiasm and Good Citizenship, but negatively
with Industriousness. Adding all context variables up we find that leaders’ perceptions
of formalized coordination mechanisms have the strongest effect on their emphasis on
exploitation and Enthusiasm in employees.
The fact that leaders’ perceptions of organization-internal coordination mechanisms
(e.g. formalization) showed stronger and more consistent effects than how they view
organization-external market conditions falls in line with theories about situational
strength. For example, Meyer et al. (2009) argued that constraints on the micro analysis
level can be stronger than those on the macro level by providing stricter guidelines
for behaviour. This means that the closer proximity of organizational coordination
mechanisms to leaders’ daily work routines elicits a stronger need for exploitative
work activities than for creativity and innovation, especially as market conditions are
more remote to the everyday routine of organization members. In our case it seems that
leaders who perceive the overall market conditions as dynamic respond with a desire
for creative and innovative employee behaviours; however, they also recognize the
impact of organizational processes and routines through formalization, and consequently
show the strongest requirement for exploitative activities in employees – namely
maintaining the status quo, and focusing on activities that promote efficiency and routine
work.
Equally noteworthy are strong effects of control variables age and leadership
experience on leaders’ preference for specific employee behaviours. Historically,
theories and research results about the role of age and leadership experience in the
development of implicit theories vary. While Epitropaki and Martin (2004) found no
age-related differences in implicit leaders theories, we are reminded of an exploratory
study by Borman (1987) who theorized that higher leadership experience may lead to a
more differentiated category system about employees because they have encountered a
wider varieties of employees in the course of their career than inexperienced leaders.
The high correlation of age and leadership experience in our sample supports
Borman’s argument; older managers might often also be more experienced leaders
and have a more complex ideal employee image embracing both explorative and
exploitative behaviours in employees. However, since our results also show a strong
negative correlation between leadership experience and exploitation we hypothesize
that age, more than leadership experience, seems to influence a more complex
employee prototype, while increased leadership experience alone might just point at a
dislike towards exploitative activities in employees. Lastly, the lack of gender specific
variation in leaders’ preferences for exploration and exploitation in employees is
399
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
remarkable and provides material for further research. We included gender as control
variable on the basis of previous research about implicit leader theories ( Johnson et al.,
2008; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004); however, to the best of our knowledge, no historical
data exist that has shown gender-related differences in regards to IFT, or even leaders’
own exploration and exploitation activities. Hence, our overall findings suggest that
while female leaders have strong preferences for certain abstract employee traits there
is no gender-specific preference in regards to exploration or exploitation in employees.
Abstract employee traits such as Good Citizenship are also important elements in
leaders’ pIFT, especially for female and older leaders and those operating in dynamic
market conditions and formalized coordination mechanisms. Since market dynamism
follows explorative principles and formalization represents exploitative organizational
aspects, we interpret our findings with the notion that Good Citizenship might be
desired by leaders in both of context types (explorative and exploitative). On that basis
we argue that being loyal, reliable and a team player seem to be the most desirable
employee traits of all – perhaps independent of work context. The strong observed
effects of gender and age on Good Citizenship were unexpected in respect to age but
falls in line with previous research about gender differences in implicit leader theories.
Johnson et al. (2008) found variations in leader prototypes based on raters’ gender and
sex-type, and Epitropaki and Martin (2004) found significant differences between male
and female respondents on dimensions of leadership anti-/prototype in respect to traits
such as understanding and sincerity. Age, on the other hand, was not indicative for
differences in leadership constructs in Epitropaki and Martin’s (2004) study, rendering
our results related to a preference for Good Citizenship behaviours in older leaders
valuable insights that pose questions for further studies into personal differences
of leaders’ pIFT.
The second major result of the current study pertaining to abstract employee traits
is the significant association between formalization and Enthusiasm. Particularly as
Enthusiasm received a low mean rating in comparison to Good Citizenship (m¼6.3)
and Industriousness (m¼6.18), it is interesting that leaders in formalized organizational
settings emphasized the traits “excited”, “happy” and “outgoing” as important aspects
of their pIFT. In an attempt to make sense of this phenomenon it may help to put it
into perspective to some of the other findings of this study. For example, in contrast
to Industriousness (hardworking, productive, goes above and beyond), and Good
Citizenship (loyal, reliable, team player) which are rather work-related traits,
Enthusiasm (happy, excited and outgoing) describes personality traits similar to
extraversion in the Big Five concept (Luse et al., 2013). It is imaginable that leaders in
formalized work settings, who perceive their work tasks as limited by stringent rules
and regulations, balance their strong task-orientation with an emphasis on positive,
non-work-related personality traits in their pIFT.
Lastly, we would like to comment on leaders’ preference for Industriousness in
employees and the associations to their perceptions of work context. Industriousness
describes a person’s task-related orientation that is similar to conscientiousness in
the Big Five personality concept (“organized”, “efficient”, “systematic”, “practical”;
Saucier, 1994). Our results showed that Industriousness is associated only with
dynamic market conditions (model 1, b¼0.188, p¼0.035), but this effect disappears
under consideration of other environmental conditions (model 3). We explain these
results with the effect of varying complexity levels of leaders’ task environment. While
conscientiousness is an important predictor for job performance, it has been found to
be insufficient for task performance in complex jobs (Blickle et al., 2012). Transferred
400
LODJ
35,5
to our findings it is thinkable that leaders do generally consider traits referring to
Industriousness (or Conscientiousness) as somewhat important in employees, but not
important enough to withstand the complexity of their work environment including
market conditions and coordination mechanisms.
8. Contribution and limitations
Our study contributes to the current literature about IFT in theory and practice.
The first theoretical contribution pertains to the structure of IFT. We expand existing
research with insights from categorization theory and suggest viewing leaders’
employee prototype in terms of a functional and an entity level. That way we gain a
more precise understanding of the different types of qualities, namely traits and
behaviours, leaders might be expecting from employees. The second major contribution
of our study is the definition and empirical investigation of leaders’ perceptions of
specific context factors that affect the content of their pIFT. The utilization of exploration
and exploitation principles as guidelines to study the relationships between work
processes and preferred employee prototype allows a realistic and theoretically sound
approach that can serve for further research on implicit theories. Third, our study
provides supporting evidence for the argument that IFT held by leaders are context-
sensitive on both the abstract and the specific level of their ideal employee category.
The results of this study concerning the link between leaders’ perception of the
organizational reality and their ideal employee image have also important practical
implications for organizations and public policy. First, implicit theories about leaders
and followers are practically present in all leader-follower interactions, and even before
individuals join an organization they hold “varying assumptions and beliefs [y] about
what leaders and followers ‘look like’” (DeRue and Ashford, 2010). These images and
beliefs not only influence behaviours but are difficult to overcome even if confronted
with adversary information via real-time behaviours (Dunning and Sherman, 1997;
Lord and Maher, 1994). Our findings add to the current literature about the relevance of
implicit theories in organizations by providing new data about what it actually is that
leaders in certain environments would like to see in their employees. This can help
organizations learn about the underlying, implicit dynamics that guide their managers’
personnel related decisions in regards to their expectations towards new and existing
employees. If it is true that situational factors provide counteracting “force fields”
( Johns, 2006), organizational leaders are invited to understand personnel choices by
their management personnel as expression of their IFT – expressions that are formed
by their perceptions of their work environment provided by the organization itself. For
example, we learned that formalized environments can lead to a more exploitative
employee prototype; our results allow us to speculate that personnel-related decisions
such as hiring, firing or performance reviews amongst these leaders will encourage
exploitative activities in employees. Most importantly, however, is that their preference
did not necessarily just grow out of their personal choice, but represent a by-product of
organizational processes directing their perceptions and consequently their efforts
towards exploitation.
Second, knowledge about the way employers’ perception of their environment can
shape expectations for potential job candidates can be used in occupational research
advising public policy makers. Hogan et al. (2013) challenge researchers to be more
cognizant about what employers really want from employees and we believe our study
is a first step into accommodating this request. By taking a holistic approach, we
suggest studying the conditions under which individual managers make employment
401
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
related decisions. For example, it can be useful to have a thorough understanding of
leaders’ perception of the degree of formalization in an organization and the way it
relates to the prevalent employee prototype, before moving on to investigating criteria
for hiring and firing or performance evaluation processes. This could lead to a more
genuine understanding for employers’ needs and requirements and help researchers
guide more practice-oriented public policy decisions towards further research into
this matter.
There are also several limitations of the current study. First, the research study was
cross-sectional therefore the results do not answer the question if changes in the work
context would elicit changes in leaders’ employee prototype as well. Second, our study
was conducted with for-profit organizations in the USA rendering the findings
non-transferrable to other types of organizations outside of the studied cultural
boundaries. Third, it could be argued that the inflation potential of Common Method
Variance caused by single-source bias is problematic because we rely on data collected
by leaders only (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In an attempt to minimize this risk we pursued
a series of ex-ante strategies to avoid CVM in the research design, for example by
counterbalancing the order of questions, the use of a complex model and the omission
of questions prompting socially desirable answers (Reio, 2010; Chang et al., 2010).
Fourth, the operationalization of the research study did not allow us to gather data of
non-replies, providing a potential for systematic bias due to non-respondents.
Systematic bias can be problematic when participants are unwilling to share sensitive
data, fear reprimand for taking part in a study or feel pressed for socially desirable
answers. These reasons do not apply in our case which is why we dismissed
systematic bias as a potential flaw of this study; participation was fully encouraged
by the leadership of the cooperating companies, anonymity was guaranteed and the
questions did not address sensitive topics or prompt social desirability. Lastly, IFT
could also be influenced by leader’s personalities, rendering it subject to untested
confounding effects such as the Similarity Attraction Paradigm. Based on these
limitations we hope for further research into the question how work context affects
leaders’ pIFT. We suggest future studies accommodate the issue of (organizational)
cultures, leader personality and greater diversity of organizations or, ideally, a measure
of timely changes in the development of pIFT that might occur in response to changes
in the work environment.
9. Conclusion
Organizations that realize that their leadership force might hold IFT that stand in
contrast to organizational goals and strategies can take action on two levels: first, they
can provide or change work processes to accommodate a tendency towards the
preferred mode of operation, for example, by de-formalizing processes in order to
encourage more exploration in leaders. Such change of processes could encourage
the formation of more explorative tendencies in leaders’ pIFT and enable managers to
foster desired behaviours. Second, increasing awareness of attitudes and assumption
about employees (Kopelman et al., 2008) as well as improving positive IFT via frequent
team building exercises (Whiteley et al., 2012) could lead to an enhancement of these
relationships. Organizations can support leaders directly via leadership training
programs that initiate and increase awareness of the existence and nature of IFT and
the social contexts in which they develop (Schyns et al., 2011). We believe that the
approach and the results of our study are encouraging for organizations that struggle
with difficulties relating to interpersonal issues between leaders and followers,
402
LODJ
35,5
as much as with mismatches between organizational strategy and its alignment
with desired explorative and exploitative work processes, managerial decisions
and subsequent employee behaviours. They also highlight the relevance and risk
of individuals’ perceptions of work context dynamics and their associations with
preferences in others – perceptions which might not always reflect the “objective” reality
of market and organization but nevertheless may provide important input for decision-
making processes.
Note
1. Due to the skewed distribution of several variables we used the non-parametric Wilcoxon
test to look for differences in medians among the variables. Normality plots of residuals
conducted on all final models showed a normal distribution, allowing us to dismiss the
concern about a negative impact of non-parametric data on the results of our regression
analyses.
References
Avolio, B.J. (2007), “Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory-building”,
American Psychologist, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 25-33.
Beehr, T.A., Weisbrodt, D.M. and Zagumny, M.J. (1994), “Satisfaction with subordinates:
a neglected research issue concerning supervisors”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
Vol. 24 No. 18, pp. 1665-1684.
Benner, M.J. and Tushman, M.L. (2003), “Exploitation, exploration, and process management:
the productivity dilemma revisited”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 28 No. 2,
pp. 238-256.
Birkinshaw, J., Hood, N. and Jonsson, S. (1998), “Building firm-specific advantages in
multinational corporations: the role of subsidiary initiative”, Strategic Management,
Vol. 19, pp. 221-241.
Blickle, G., Meurs, J.A., Wihler, A., Ewen, C., Plies, A. and Gu
¨nter, S. (2012), “The interactive
effects of conscientiousness, openness to experience, and political skill on job performance
in complex jobs: the importance of context”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 34
No. 8, pp. 1145-1164.
Borman, W.C. (1987), “Personal constructs, performance schemata, and ‘folk theories’ of subordinate
effectiveness: explorations in an army officer sample”, Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes,Vol.40,pp.307-322.
Chang, S.-J., van Witteloostuijn, A. and Eden, L. (2010), “From the editors: common method
variance in international business research”, Journal of International Business Studies,
Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 178-184.
Collinson, D. (2006), “Rethinking followership: a post-structuralist analysis of follower identities”,
The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 179-189.
Cottrell, C.A., Neuberg, S.L. and Li, N.P. (2007), “What do people desire in others? A
sociofunctional perspective on the importance of different valued characteristics”, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 92 No. 2, pp. 208-231.
Crossman, B. and Crossman, J. (2011), “Conceptualizing followership – a review of the literature”,
Leadership, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 481-497.
Den Hartog, D.N., House, R.J. and Hanges, P.J. (1999), “Culture specific and cross-culturally
generalizable implicit leadership theories: are the attributes of charismatic/transformational
leadership universally endorsed?”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 219-258.
DeRue, D.S. (2011), “Adaptive leadership theory: leading and following as a complex adaptive
process”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 31, pp. 125-150.
403
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
DeRue, D.S. and Ashford, S.J. (2010), “Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of
leadership identity construction in organizations”, The Academy of Management Review,
Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 627-647.
Desphande, R. and Zaltman, G. (1982), “Factors affecting the use of market research information:
a path analysis”, J. Marketing Res., Vol. 19, pp. 14-31.
Dess, G.G. and Beard, D.W. (1984), “Dimensions of organizational task environments”,
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 29, pp. 52-73.
Dewar, R.D., Whetten, D.A. and Boje, D. (1980), “An examination of the reliability and validity
of the Aiken and Hage scales of centralization, formalization, and task routines”,
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 25, pp. 120-128.
Dill, W.R. (1958), “Environment as an influence on managerial autonomy”, Administrative Science
Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 409-443.
Drucker, P.F. (1974), Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Harper & Row, New York, NY.
Dunning, D. and Sherman, D.A. (1997), “Stereotypes and tacit inference”, Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, Vol. 73 No. 3, pp. 459-471.
Engle, E.M. and Lord, R.G. (1997), “Implicit theories, self-schemas, and leader-member
exchange”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 40 No. 4, pp. 988-1010.
Epitropaki, O. and Martin, R. (2004), “Implicit leadership theories in applied settings: factor
structure, generalizability, and stability over time”, Journal of Appl ied Psychology, Vol. 89
No. 2, pp. 293-310.
Fiedler, F.E. (1964), “A contingency model of leadership effectiveness”, Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 149-190.
Gibson, C.B. and Birkinshaw, J. (2004), “The antecedents, consequences, and mediating role
of organizational ambidexterity”, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 47 No. 2,
pp. 209-226.
Gupta, A.K., Smith, K.G. and Shalley, C.E. (2006), “The interplay between exploration and
exploitation”, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 693-706.
Hall, R.J., Workman, J.W. and Marchioro, C.A. (1998), “Sex, task and behavioral flexibility effects
on leadership perceptions”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
Vol. 74 No. 1, pp. 1-32.
Hanges, P.J., Lord, R.G. and Dickson, M.W. (2000), “An information-processing perspective
on leadership and culture: a case for connectionist architecture”, Applied Psychology: An
International Review, Vol. 49 No. 1, pp. 133-161.
He, Z.L. and Wong, P.K. (2004), “Exploration vs. exploitation: an empirical test of the
ambidexterity hypothesis”, Organization Science, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 481-494.
Hogan, R., Chamorro-Premuzic, T. and Kaiser, R.B. (2013), “Employability and career success:
bridging the gap between theory and reality”, Industrial and Organizational Psychology,
Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 3-16.
Hotho, S. and Champion, K. (2010), “We are always after that balance-managing innovation in the
new digital media industries”, Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, Vol. 5
No. 3, pp. 36-50.
Jansen, J.J.P., Van Den Bosch, F.A.J. and Volberda, H.W. (2006), “Exploratory innovation,
exploitative innovation, and performance: effects of organizational antecedents and
environmental moderators”, Management Science, Vol. 52 No. 11, pp. 1661-1674.
Jaworski, B.J. and Kohli, A.K. (1993), “Market orientation: antecedents and consequences”,
J. Marketing, Vol. 57, pp. 53-70.
Johns, G. (2006), “The essential impact of context on organizational behavior”, The Academy of
Management Review, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 386-408.
404
LODJ
35,5
Johnson, S.K., Murphy, S.E., Zewdie, S. and Reichard, R.J. (2008), “The strong, sensitive type: effects
of gender stereotypes and leadership prototypes on the evaluation of male and female
leaders”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,Vol.106No.1,pp.39-60.
Joshi, A. and Roh, H. (2009), “The role of context in work team diversity research: a meta-analytic
review”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 599-627.
Keller, T. (1999), “Images of the familiar: individual differences and implicit leadership theories”,
The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 589-607.
Kieser, A. and Walgenbach, P. (2010), Organisation, 6th ed., Scha
¨ffer-Po
¨schel, Stuttgart.
Kopelman, R.E., Prottas, D.J. and Davis, A.L. (2008), “Douglas McGregor’s theory X and Y:
toward a construct-valid measure”, Journal of Managerial Issues, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 255-271.
Liden, R.C. and Antonakis, J. (2009), “Considering context in psychological leadership research”,
Human Relations, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1587-1605.
Lord, R.G. (1976), “Group performance as a function of leadership behavior and task structure:
toward an explanatory theory”, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Vol. 17
No. 1, pp. 76-96.
Lord, R.G. and Emrich, C.G. (2001), “Thinking outside the box by looking inside the box:
extending the cognitive revolution in leadership research”, The Leadership Quarterly,
Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 551-579.
Lord, R.G. and Maher, K.J. (1994), Leadership and Information Processing: Linking Perceptions
and Performance, New ed., Routledge, New York, NY.
Lord, R.G., Brown, D.J. and Harvey, J.L. (2001a), “System constraints on leadership perceptions,
behavior, and influence: an example of connectionist level processes”, in Hogg, M.A. and
Tindale, R.S. (Eds), Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Group Processes, Vol. 3,
Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, pp. 283-310.
Lord, R.G., Brown, D.J., Harvey, J.L. and Hall, R.J. (2001b), “Contextual constraints on prototype
generation and their multilevel consequences for leadership perceptions”, The Leadership
Quarterly, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 311-338.
Luse, A., McElroy, J.C., Townsend, A.M. and DeMarie, S. (2013), “Personality and cognitive style
as predictors of preference for working in virtual teams”, Computers in Human Behavior,
Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 1825-1832.
McGregor, D.M. (1966), Leadership and Motivation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
March, J.G. (1991), “Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning”, Organization
Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 71-87.
Medvedeff, M.E. and Lord, R.G. (2007), “Implicit leadership theories as dynamic processing
structures”, in Boas and Shamir (Eds), Follower-Centered Perspectives on Leadership:
ATribute to the Memory of James R. Meindl (HC) (Leadership Horizons), Information Age
Publishing, Greenwich, CT, pp. 19-50.
Meyer, R.D., Dalal, R.S. and Bonaccio, S. (2009), “A meta-analytic investigation into the
moderating effects of situational strength on the conscientiousness-performance
relationship”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 30 No. 8, pp. 1077-1102.
Miles, R.E. (1964), “Conflicting elements in managerial ideologies”, Industrial Relations, Vol. 4
No. 1, pp. 77-91.
Mom, T.J.M., Van Den Bosch, F.A.J. and Volberda, H.W. (2007), “Investigating managers’
exploration and exploitation activities: the influence of top-down, bottom-up, and
horizontal knowledge inflows”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 44 No. 6, pp. 910-931.
Mom, T.J.M., Van Den Bosch, F.A.J. and Volberda, H.W. (2009), “Understanding variation in
managers’ ambidexterity: investigating direct and interaction effects of formal structural
and personal coordination”, Organization Science, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 812-828.
405
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
Neter, J., Kutner, M., Wasserman, W. and Nachtsheim, C. (1996), Applied Linear Statistical Models,
4th ed., McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Chicago, IL.
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.-Y. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in
behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal
of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 879-903.
Posen, H.E. and Levinthal, D.A. (2011), “Chasing a moving target: exploitation and exploration in
dynamic environments”, Management Science, Vol. 58 No. 3, pp. 587-601.
Raisch, S., Birkinshaw, J., Probst, G. and Tushman, M.L. (2009), “Organizational ambidexterity:
balancing exploitation and exploration for sustained performance”, Organization Science,
Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 685-695.
Reio, T.G. (2010), “The threat of common method variance bias to theory building”, Human
Resource Development Review, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 405-411.
Rosch, E. (1978), “Principles of categorization”, in Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B.B. (Eds), Cognition and
Categorization, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 27-48.
Sanders, M.M. (1999), “Leader, follower, team player, thief: an exploration of managers’ performer
categories”, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 199-215.
Saucier, G. (1994), “Mini-markers: a brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar big-five markers”,
Journal of Personality Assessment, Vol. 63 No. 3, pp. 506-516.
Schyns, B., Kiefer, T., Kerschreiter, R. and Tymon, A. (2011), “Teaching implicit leadership
theories to develop leaders and leadership: how and why it can make a difference”, The
Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 397-408.
Shondrick, S.J. and Lord, R.G. (2010), “Implicit leadership and followership theories: dynamic
structures for leadership perceptions, memory, leader-follower processes”, in Hodgkinson, G.P.
and Ford, J.K. (Eds), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 25,
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, pp. 1-33.
Shondrick, S.J., Dinh, J.E. and Lord, R.G. (2010), “Developments in implicit leadership theory and
cognitive science: applications to improving measurement and understanding alternatives
to hierarchical leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 21, pp. 959-978.
Smothers, J., Bing, M.N., White, D., Trocchia, P.J. and Absher, K. (2011), “From the follower’s
viewpoint: a configurational approach to the ideal academic leader”, Journal of Leadership
& Organizational Studies, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 293-307.
Sy, T. (2010), “What do you think of followers? Examining the content, structure, and consequences
of implicit followership theories”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
Vol. 113 No. 2, pp. 73-84.
Uhl-Bien, M. and Pillai, R. (2007), “The romance of leadership and the social construction of
followership”, in Boas and Shamir (Eds), Follower-Centered Perspectives on Leadership: A
Tribute to the Memory of James R. Meindl (HC) (Leadership Horizons), Information Age
Publishing, Greenwich, CT, pp. 187-209.
Van de Ven, A.H., Ganco, M. and Hinings, C.R. (2013), “Returning to the frontier of contingency
theory of organizational and institutional designs”, The Academy of Management Annals,
Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 391-438.
van Gils, S., van Quaquebeke, N. and van Knippenberg, D. (2010), “The X-factor: on the relevance
of implicit leadership and followership theories for leader-member exchange agreement”,
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 333-363.
Volberda, H.W. and Van Bruggen, G.H. (1997), “Environmental turbulence: a look into its
dimensionality”, in Bemelmans, M.T.A. (Ed.) Dynamiek in organisatie en bedrijfsvoering,
NOBO, Enschede, The Netherlands, pp. 137-146.
Weibler, J. and Keller, T. (2011), “Ambidextrie in Abha
¨ngigkeit von Fu
¨hrungsverantwortung und
Marktwahrnehmung: Eine empirische Analyse des individuellen Arbeitsverhaltens in
Unternehmen”, Zeitschrift fu
¨r betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, Vol. 63, pp. 155-188.
406
LODJ
35,5
Wernimont, P.F. (1971), “What supervisors and subordinates expect of each other”, Personnel
Journal, Vol. 50, March, pp. 204-208.
Whiteley, P., Sy, T. and Johnson, S.K. (2012), “Leaders’ conceptions of followers: implications
for naturally occurring Pygmalion effects”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 23 No. 5,
pp. 822-834.
Yukl, G.A. (2009), Leadership in Organizations, 7th ed., Prentice Hall, NJ.
Zaccaro, S.J., Foti, R.J. and Kenny, D.A. (1991), “Self-monitoring and trait-based variance in
leadership: an investigation of leader flexibility across multiple group situations”, Journal
of Applied Psychology, Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 308-315.
Zahra, S.A. and Bogner, W.C. (1999), “Technology strategy and software new ventures’
performance: exploring the moderating effect of the competitive environment”, Journal
of Business Venturing, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 135-173.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. and McLean, G.N. (2010), “Linking organizational culture, structure, strategy,
and organizational effectiveness: mediating role of knowledge management”, Journal of
Business Research, Vol. 63 No. 7, pp. 763-771.
Appendix 1. Work context
Market conditions ( Jansen et al., 2006, p. 1672)
Question: “How would you describe the typical market conditions surrounding your work unit?”
Environmental dynamism (based on Dill, 1958; Volberda and Van Brugen, 1997):
Environmental changes in our local market are intense.
Our clients regularly ask for new products and services.
In our local market, changes are taking place continuously.
In a year, nothing has changed in our market.*
In our market, the volumes of products and services to be delivered change fast and often.
*reverse item
Environmental competitiveness (based on Birkinshaw et al., 1998; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993)
Competition in our local market is intense.
Our organizational unit has relatively strong competitors.
Competition in our local market is extremely high.
Price competition is a hallmark of our local market.
All items were measured on a seven-point scale, anchored by 1 ¼strongly disagree and
7¼strongly agree.
Coordination mechanisms (Mom et al., 2009, p. 826)
Decentralization/Managers’ decision-making authority (based on Dewar et al., 1980)
Question: “How would you assess the degree of your decision-making authority in the
performance of your tasks and your ability to set goals?”
I can undertake little action until my supervisor approves a decision.
If I want to make my own decisions, I will be quickly discouraged.
I have to ask my supervisor before I do almost anything.
Any decision I make has to have my supervisor’s approval.
Formalization of a manager’s tasks (based on Desphande and Zaltman, 1982)
Question: “To what extent are your tasks defined by rules, procedures, or regulations?”
Whatever situation arises, I have procedures to deal with it.
I have to follow strict operational procedures at all times.
407
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’
Rules occupy a central place in my work related activities.
There is a written job description for going about my tasks.
All items were me asured on a seven-point scale, anchored by 1 ¼strongly disagree and
7¼strongly agree.
Appendix 2. pIFT
Specific category level (based on Mom et al., 2009)
Question: “Which of the following employee activities do you consider most important?”
Exploration activities:
Searching for new possibilities with respect to products/services, processes, or markets
Evaluating diverse options with respect to products/services, processes, or markets
Focusing on strong renewal of products/services or processes
Activities in which the associated yields or costs are currently unclear
Activities requiring quite some adaptability of him/her
Activities requiring him/her to learn new skills or knowledge
Activities that are not (yet) clearly existing company policy
Exploitation activities:
Activities of which a lot of experience has been accumulated by him/herself
Activities which he/she carries out as if it were routine
Activities which serve existing (internal) customers with existing products/services
Activities in which it is clear to him/her how to conduct them
Activities primarily focused on achieving short-term goals
Activities which he/she can properly conduct by using his/her present knowledge
Activities which clearly fit into existing company policy
All items were me asured on a seven-point scale, anchored by 1 ¼strongly disagree and
7¼strongly agree.
Abstract category level (based on Sy, 2010)
Question: “Which of the following employee characteristics do you consider most important?”
Hardworking, Productive, Goes above and beyond (subcategory: Industriousness)
Excited, Outgoing, Happy (subcategory: Enthusiasm)
Loyal, Reliable, Team Player (subcategory: Good Citizen)
All items were me asured on a seven-point scale, anchored by 1 ¼strongly disagree and
7¼strongly agree.
408
LODJ
35,5
Appendix 3
Mean rank zp
Market conditions
Market dynamic 77.61 2.792 0.005
Market competitiveness 96.78
Coordination mechanisms
Decentralization 93.28 9.921 o0.001
Formalization 55.38
Ideal employee qualities
Abstract category level
Industriousness 81.3 9.484 o0.001
Enthusiasm 52.2
Industriousness 59.43 1.951 0.051
Good Citizenship 67.49
Enthusiasm 38.23 10.307 o0.001
Good Citizenship 83.62
Specific category level
Exploration 90.16 0.859 0.391
Exploitation 90.89
Abstract and specific category levels
Exploration 64.6 10.478 o0.001
Industriousness 88.9
Exploration 72.37 4.085 o0.001
Enthusiasm 89.08
Exploration 25.11 10.958 o0.001
Good Citizenship 93.47
Exploitation 60.56 10.741 o0.001
Industriousness 90.52
Exploitation 87.63 4.735 o0.001
Enthusiasm 89.58
Exploitation 34.25 11.308 o0.001
Good Citizenship 91.93
Table AI.
Wilcoxon test results
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
409
The ideal
employee:
context and
leaders’