Research has not focused on the negative effects of despotic leadership on subordinates’ life satisfaction and the interface between work and family. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory, this research investigates the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion through which despotic leadership transcends from the workplace to subordinates’ personal lives, resulting in work-family conflict and decreased life satisfaction. The research also examines the moderating effect of subordinates’ anxiety on the relationship of their perceptions of despotic leadership with work-family conflict and life satisfaction. Three waves of time-lagged data was collected from 224 book sellers who work in publishing houses. We used Hayes’ PROCESS to test moderation and SEM to test mediation. The results of the study suggest that despotic leadership is related to work-family conflict via emotional exhaustion, but offer no support for its relationship with life satisfaction. As expected, when subordinates’ anxiety increases, the positive relationship between a supervisor’s despotism and his or her subordinates’ work-family conflict and the negative relationship between despotic leadership and life satisfaction both strengthen. The results suggest that despotic leaders harm their subordinates’ non-work lives, and these effects intensify when subordinates have high levels of anxiety. These findings have important implications for service organizations in mitigating the negative effects of despotic leadership by minimizing subordinates’ anxiety through coping mechanisms and giving reward and incentives.

PurposeThis study contributes to the leadership literature by examining how and when despotic leadership jeopardizes employees' performance. Specifically, we examine whether employees' job performance could be harmed by despotic supervision through employees' work withdrawal behaviour. Moreover, we investigate whether the quality of work-life (QWL) helps in toning down the harmful effects of despotic supervision on work withdrawal.Design/methodology/approachWe used a multi-wave research design with data collected from 195 employees and their supervisors working in Pakistan's manufacturing sector. At time 1, we measured the independent variable (i.e. despotic leadership) and moderator (QWL), whereas, at time-2, the mediator (work withdrawal) was tapped by the same respondent with a time interval of three weeks between them. At time 3, the outcome (supervisor-rated job performance) was assessed directly by the supervisors.FindingsThe results support the mediating effect between despotic leadership and employees' performance through an enhanced level of work withdrawal behaviour. The effect of despotic leadership on job performance via work withdrawal behaviour was found to be weaker among employees with a higher level of QWL.Practical implicationsFor individuals, QWL serves as an enhancement of personal resources to deal with despotic leaders at the workplace; for organizations, our study results alert managers and leaders at the workplace to address employees' need for QWL as this positive resource may discourage work withdrawal behaviour and stimulate employees to perform well in their jobs despite facing despotic supervision.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the leadership literature by introducing work withdrawal as an underlying mechanism to explain the despotic leadership – job performance relationship. Further, we examined how the harmful effects of despotic leadership can be toned down through the moderating variable of QWL thus having practical implications for both employers and employees.

In this study, we are interested in how export firms organize knowledge management and increase product innovation performance. Prior studies have concluded that knowledge transfer from external actors leads to operational performance outcomes; others have questioned the positive influence of buyer‐driven knowledge transfer activities on innovation performance. Drawing on absorptive capacity, we aim to offer a better understanding, how export firms as recipients of knowledge resources, organize their internal capabilities in order to realize firm‐level product innovation. This empirical study examines the interplay of buyer‐driven knowledge activities, resource acquisition and combining, and product innovation outcomes in the context of Pakistani export firms. Drawing on survey data from 239 export‐manufacturing firms, we test hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that buyer‐driven knowledge transfer activities play a crucial role in enhancing export firms in absorbing and combining resources that lead to product innovation. The pragmatic suggestion of the research suggests that managers look closely at developing a culture of involvement with their buyers that promotes the development of knowledge resources. The results of this study have research, policy, and managerial implications.

We draw from theory on sleep and affect regulation to extend the emotional labor model of leadership. We examine both leader and follower sleep as important antecedents of attributions of charismatic leadership. In Study 1, we manipulate the sleep of leaders, and find that leader emotional labor in the form of deep acting (but not surface acting or authentically experienced positive affect) mediates the harmful effect of leader sleep deprivation on follower ratings of charismatic leadership. In Study 2, we manipulate the sleep of followers, and find that follower experienced positive affect mediates the harmful effect of follower sleep deprivation on follower ratings of charismatic leadership of the leader. Thus, both leader and follower sleep deprivation harm attributions of charismatic leadership, with the regulation and experience of affect as causal mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record

Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examined the underlying mechanism through which workplace bullying (WB) affects employees’ life satisfaction via job-related anxiety and insomnia. Time-lagged data were collected at two points in time from 211 doctor interns working in various hospitals in Pakistan. Our results fully supported a proposed serial multiple-mediator model. Workplace bullying was indirectly related to life satisfaction via job-related anxiety and insomnia. This study provides evidence of a spillover effect as to how workplace bullying increases employees’ job-related anxiety which in turn leads to insomnia resulting in reduced employees’ life satisfaction. The present study extends research on workplace bullying to display its theoretical as well as empirical effects on life satisfaction. It demonstrates that workplace bullying as an occupational and psychological stressor has multiple effects on employees’ life satisfaction through a serial mediation model in the context of a developing country. It further explains that workplace bullying not only affects an employee’s workplace behaviors but also extends to the employee’s overall life satisfaction.