The Influences of Leaders' Negative Implicit Followership Theories on Employees' Work Behaviors: A Dual-Pathway Model

Drawing on affective event theory and psychological empowerment theory, we investigate how, through an emotional process and a work-cognition process, leaders' Negative Implicit Followership Theories (NIFTs) affect employees' psychological status and their service performance and altruistic behavior toward colleagues. We propose that leaders' NIFTs influence not only employees themselves but also the parties with whom employees interact. We test our theoretical model by using multisource data from 210 frontline service employees, their direct supervisors, and their colleagues. Our results show that through the serial mediation of abusive supervision and employees' negative mood, leaders' NIFTs decrease employees' service performance but do not decrease their altruistic behavior toward colleagues. Furthermore, our results show that through the serial mediation of leader-member exchange (LMX) and employees' psychological empowerment, leaders' NIFTs decrease both employees' service performance and altruistic behavior toward colleagues.