Influence of leaders’ authentic competences on nepotism-favouritism and cronyism

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how an authentic leader’s internal (self-regulation, self-awareness and internalised moral perspective) and external competencies (relational transparency and balance processing) influence nepotism, favouritism and cronyism (NFC). Design/methodology/approach The study used a quantitative research approach and respondents were sampled from private and public banks across the ten regions of Ghana using survey questionnaires. Overall, 127 branch managers and 997 subordinates were sampled. The collected data were analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression was used to explore the influence the of authentic leadership (AL) competences on NFC. Findings On leader’s internal competences, the results revealed that self-awareness had a significant decreasing influence on nepotism in terms of operations, while internalised moral perspective had a significant increasing influence on favouritism in the context of position. Self-regulation did not have any significant influence on NFC. Regarding the leader’s external competences, relational transparency had a significant positive influence on favouritism and nepotism, while balance processing had a significant negative influence on favouritism and nepotism in the context of position and operations, respectively. Research limitations/implications The results suggest that AL competences have a mixed influence on NFC in the context of this study. However, the findings are limited to Ghana and cannot be generalised to countries that do not share a similar culture with Ghana such as countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and even certain countries in Africa. Practical implications The authors advise family businesses to use free and fair measures to appoint or promote employees who have the required skills to manage the office rather than appointing family members to positions without merit. Training on AL and NFC should be conducted for managers to enable them to understand the potential negative effects of NFC on the employees and the organisation at large. Social implications Laws must be passed to guard against appointments or recruitments of employees in the public sector organisations based on NFC to minimise these unethical behaviours. Originality/value This is the first study which empirically explores AL competences influence on the leaders’ behaviour in the context of NFC.

Does Organizational Cronyism Lead to Lower Employee Performance? Examining the Mediating Role of Employee Engagement and Moderating Role of Islamic Work Ethics

“…Organizational cronyism was measured by using the 7-items scale developed by Arasli and Tumer (2008) . Examples of items contain “Politicians and political affinities are connected to being appointed, promoted, and the various decision-making activities of in this organization,” and “Sex discrimination at this organization damages the profitability and motivation of other employees.” This scale is further validated by Erdem and Karataş (2015) and Akuffo and Kivipõld (2019) .…”

“…Employees’ perception of their job is influenced by their manager’s behavior, which has an ultimate positive or negative impact on employees’ attitudes toward their job and performance ( Akuffo and Kivipõld, 2019 ). For instance, when employees feel that they have not been treated on merit, they feel vexed, dissatisfied, and frustrated which ultimately hurt their energies to perform their job in a better way ( Baris Erdem, 2015 ).…”

How Do Nepotism and Favouritism Affect Organisational Climate?

“…However, it cannot be ruled out that these variables could have had certain influence, as the enterprise's policy with regard to nepotism and favouritism depend on both the attitude of the owners of the enterprise itself and the traditions established in that country (e.g., Safina, 2015;Vveinhardt and Sroka, 2020). Nepotism and favouritism may depend on variables such as gender, age, or education of employees (Sandström and Hällsten, 2008;Akuffo and Kivipõld, 2019;Gorji et al, 2020). For this reason, for example, the responses of women (74%) could have influenced the discrimination variable due to managers' poorer attitude toward them (Sandström and Hällsten, 2008); therefore, additional research would be useful in the future.…”

Human Resource Management for Ghanaian Nurses: Job Satisfaction Versus Turnover Intentions

“…Even though the recommendation by Hair et al [64] justified the sample size as adequate to predict the proposed relationship, future studies should endeavour to increase the sample size and expand the study area to include other regions to see whether the same or different results might be obtained. The study also recommends that future research should consider the role of leadership behaviour in the daily operations of hospitals since previous studies have already established that the manner in which leaders manage conflicts, as well as showing favouritism, influences employees' behaviour negatively and results in employees engaging in counterproductive work behaviours (Akuffo and Kivipõld [83]; Akuffo, [84]). Therefore, future studies should consider the leadership behaviours that have the potential to influence employees' leaving intentions.…”