| Author: | Xu, Yanhui |
| Title: | Give a fish or teach to fish : linking leader helping behavior to innovative performance from self-determination theory perspective |
| Advisors: | Lin, Jia Katrina (MM) |
| Degree: | D.B.A. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Leadership Management Technological innovations -- Management Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Business |
| Pages: | v, 148 pages : illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Grounded on self-determination theory, this study examines whether and how leaders providing different types of help (i.e., autonomy-oriented help and dependency-oriented help) might influence subordinates’ innovative performance. I predict that when leaders provide more autonomy-oriented help, subordinates perceive a higher level of autonomy, competence, and relatedness need satisfaction, all of which lead to higher innovative performance. In contrast, when leaders provide more dependency-oriented help, although subordinates still perceive a higher level of relatedness need satisfaction, their autonomy and competence need satisfaction suffer. Therefore, subordinates receiving more dependency-oriented help are not necessarily more innovative at work. In addition, I innovatively defined help delivery. It captures how help is provided to recipients and reflects the leader's interpersonal treatment during the help process. I posit that help delivery would moderate the relationships between leaders' helping behaviors and subordinates’ basic need satisfaction. I used a multi-wave design to collect data from 236 subordinates at two time points with a one-month time lag in between. The results showed that leaders’ autonomy-oriented help behavior was positively related to subordinates’ autonomy needs, competence needs, and relatedness needs satisfaction (H1); leaders’ dependency-help behavior was not found to be related to subordinates’ autonomy needs and competence needs satisfaction, but was positively related to relationship needs satisfaction. Competence needs satisfaction was positively related to innovative performance; however, neither autonomy needs satisfaction or relatedness needs satisfaction was related to innovative performance. I did not find support for any moderating effect of help delivery. However, exploratory analyses found that gender moderated the relationship between dependency-oriented help from a leader and autonomy need satisfaction, as well as the relationship between autonomy-oriented help from a leader and competence need satisfaction. Overall, female subordinates benefited more from the leader’s autonomy-oriented help by experiencing higher competence need satisfaction. However, male subordinates are hurt even more by the leader’s dependency-oriented help by experiencing lower autonomy need satisfaction. These results suggest further research and discussion on the types of leadership helping behaviors and innovative performance. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7924.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 3.5 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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