Supervisors’ Leadership Styles’ Influence on Foreign Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in a Cross-Cultural Work Setting: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Leadership style impacts on the manner and frequency of feedback transmission. However, communication challenges between superiors and subordinates originate from cultural differences, which undermine the usefulness of feedback. The study tested leadership style’s effect on self-efficacy through a moderated mediation approach, examined through the lens of the cross-cultural adaptation theory. Path analysis conducted on data from 281 foreign teachers in Chengdu, China, revealed that there is a positive effect of Chinese supervisors’ leadership styles on foreign teacher’s self-efficacy. Leadership style similarly has an influence on the nature of feedback. And the nature of feedback in turn mediates leadership style and self-efficacy. We establish in particular that transactional and transformational leadership styles, through the nature of feedback, influence self-efficacy of foreign teachers. Moreover, the association between the nature of feedback and self-efficacy is moderated by the perceived value of feedback. Employees’ perceptions are also found to be crucial in determining the value of feedback. It is thus imperative for supervisors and managers working with foreigners as subordinates to figure out when and how to provide valuable feedback. We conclude with suggested areas for further research.

Transformational, Transactional, Laissez-faire Leadership Styles and Employee Engagement: Evidence From Vietnam’s Public Sector

“…Employee performance, such as latent rewards, contingencies, or penalties, has a positive effect on emotional engagement, ongoing engagement as well as normative engagement (Agarwal & Gupta, 2021;Moradi Korejan & Shahbazi, 2016;Xirasagar, 2008). A small number of studies indicate that transactional leadership style has a positive influence on work engagement (Gumah et al, 2021), whereas the majority of studies reveal that the leadership style is laissez-faire; employees tend to leave the organization or commit to working less clearly (Abasilim et al, 2018;James & Ogbonna, 2013). However, this finding points out that even with a laissez-faire leadership style, employees in Vietnam's public sector have a fairly sustained engagement to work with the organization, transformational leaders, transactional leaders, and laissez-faire leaders both have a positive relationship with employee's engagement.…”

Predictors of Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in Teaching EFL: An Examination of “Nativeness” and Teachers’ Training

“…The study adopted and modified the 12 item Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) proposed by Tschannen-Moran et al (1998), which is used not only for general teaching but also for language teacheing (Chacón, 2005;Eslami and Fatahi, 2008;Swanson, 2012;Clark, 2016;Berger et al, 2018;Azari Noughabi and Amirian, 2021;Gumah et al, 2021). Although other self-efficacy scales exist specifically for language teachers, such as the Second/Foreign Language Teacher Efficacy Scale (S/FLTES) developed and used by Swanson (Swanson, 2012;Url and Swanson, 2012), the S/FLTES is still new and needs further development and testing on a more extensive and diverse S/FL teaching population.…”