Stealing Time on the Company’s Dime: Examining the Indirect Effect of Laissez-Faire Leadership on Employee Time Theft

The dark and bright side of laissez-faire leadership: Does subordinates’ goal orientation make a difference?

“…Firstly, it contributes to the laissez-faire leadership literature, which has produced inconsistent findings on the outcomes of such leadership. The studies on laissez-fair leadership to date have demonstrated its destructive consequences on subordinates’ performance, attitudes and behavior (e.g., Judge and Piccolo, 2004 ; Skogstad et al, 2007 ; Diebig and Bormann, 2020 ; Hu et al, 2022 ), while several recent studies illustrated positive effects of laissez-faire leadership. For instance, Zareen et al (2015) and Fiaz et al (2017) both found that laissez-faire leadership has a positive effect on employee motivation.…”

“…Although the effects of laissez-faire leadership are relatively well-documented, the underlying mechanisms and the boundary conditions associated with such effects remain scarce ( Robert and Vandenberghe, 2021 ). Several studies, which are exceptions, mainly focus on subordinates’ emotion, norms, role clarity, and LMX ( McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2005 ; Skogstad et al, 2007 ; Robert and Vandenberghe, 2021 ; Hu et al, 2022 ; Lundmark et al, 2022 ) as mediators to offer explanations. For instance, Skogstad et al (2007) illustrated that laissez-faire leadership may lead to role ambiguity and workplace conflict, further leading to workplace bullying.…”

“…To date, laissez-faire leadership has primarily been considered as the most passive leadership style that may yield various destructive effects on employees ( Bass and Avolio, 1997 ; Hinkin and Schriesheim, 2008 ; Skogstad et al, 2014 ; Hu et al, 2022 ; Parveen et al, 2022 ). However, several studies have suggested that laissez-faire leadership may not necessarily lead to negative outcomes.…”

Longitudinal relations between abusive supervision, subordinates’ emotional exhaustion, and job neglect among Pakistani Nurses: The moderating role of self-compassion

“…Bowling and Gruys ( 2010 ) noted that workplace deviance is a situation-specific construct and its measure should include key behaviors that are important to a specific job or organization. More recently, researchers have begun to focus on several sub-dimensions of workplace deviance, beyond those that have typically been examined in the literature, such as job neglect, time theft, and sabotage (e.g., Hu et al, 2022 ; McLarty et al, 2021 ; Xu et al, 2022 ). In our opinion, job neglect might be most relevant for service organizations, such as hospitals, as this particular type of dysfunctional behavior can have detrimental effects on service quality and customer satisfaction, ultimately leading to poor organizational performance.…”

“…First, previous studies investigating the reciprocal relationship between abusive supervision and workplace deviance have used broader conceptualizations of workplace deviance construct (e.g., Lian et al, 2014a ; Simon et al, 2015 ); consequently, numerous potential sub-dimensions of workplace deviance have been ignored in the abusive supervision literature (Bowling & Gruys, 2010 ; Mackey, 2021 ). Recent research on deviant workplace behavior has demonstrated that various types of workplace deviance, such as job neglect, time theft, and sabotage, are differentially and uniquely related to potential antecedents and outcomes (e.g., Hu et al, 2022 ; McLarty et al, 2021 ; Xu et al, 2022 ). In this study, we focus exclusively on job neglect and posit that abusive supervision and job neglect are reciprocally related.…”