Leader–follower (dis)similarity in resilience, relational demography and absenteeism: a test of two competing perspectives

Abstract

PurposeThis study sought to test two competing sets of hypotheses derived from two different theoretical perspectives regarding (1) the effects of leader–follower similarity and dissimilarity in psychological resilience on the follower's absenteeism in times of organizational crisis and (2) the moderating effect of relational demography (gender and age similarity) in these relationships.Design/methodology/approachPolynomial regression and response surface analysis were performed using data from 510 followers and 149 supervisors in a financial firm in Canada.FindingsThe results overall support the similarity–attraction perspective, but not the resource complementarity perspective. Dissimilarity in resilience was predictive of followers' absenteeism, and similarity in surface-level conditions (gender and age) attenuates the relational burdens triggered by resilience discrepancy.Practical implicationsThe findings reiterate the importance of developing employees' resilience, while shedding light on the importance for managers of being aware of their potential misalignment with subordinates resilience.Originality/valueThe results (1) suggest that it is the actual (di)similarity with the leader, rather than leader's degree of resilience, that shapes followers' absenteeism and (2) add nuance to the resilience literature.

Stay Together to be Strong: How Online Knowledge Sharing Matters

“…Employees who experience role conflict are often not sure and clear about their job and worry about how to accomplish their tasks at work (Helogren & Sverke, 2001;Probst, 2003). As a result, role conflict often raises concerns and anxiety as employees may be confused about their role in the organisation and tend to feel that they cannot fulfil their part of the psychological contract, not be able to control the future, and have less job security (Parent-Rocheleau et al, 2021). Therefore, a positive association between role conflict and job insecurity has been proven in previous studies (Helogren & Sverke, 2001;Probst, 2003).…”

“…The effects of role conflict can be recognised in employees' moods in the form of negativity or irritability (Schulz-Hardt et al, 2002); however, from a positive view, task conflict, in some cases, can benefit team relationships as employees engage more with knowledge donating and knowledge collecting to gain other ideas to solve work tasks (Parent-Rocheleau et al, 2021;Simons & Peterson, 2000). Employees who experience role conflict are more inclined to be more active in knowledge donating and collecting to make better decisions, as this role conflict urges them to have a higher cognitive understanding of the issue (Simons & Peterson, 2000).…”

The influence of supervisor supportive behaviors on subordinate job satisfaction: the moderating effect of gender similarity

“…Moreover, previous literature has resorted to the social role theory (Eagly et al, 1995;Eagly and Wood, 2013) and the similarity attraction framework (Schieman and McMullen, 2008) to explain the role of supervisor gender -in the context of social stereotypes and prejudices concerning male and female conditions -in terms of, for example, interactions with subordinates (Stewart and Wiener, 2021). In this vein, some previous works have also explored the moderating role of supervisor-subordinate gender similarity in the study of supervisors' impact on subordinates' behaviors at work (Parent-Rocheleau et al, 2023).…”