The Dark Side of Paternalistic Leadership: Employee Discrimination and Nepotism

Abstract

Purpose: Paternalistic leadership is a prevailing leadership style in environments characterized by high power distance, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance and is a general aspect of family businesses. With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to investigate paternalistic leadership in Turkish business environment and test the relationship between paternalistic leadership and employee discrimination and nepotism. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were collected by a questionnaire from 183 employees working in family owned companies located in Turkey. Convenience sampling was used. Findings: Findings indicate that benevolent and moral paternalistic leadership is negatively related to perceived discrimination in human resources practices like recruitment, hiring, promotion, assignments, delegation, evaluation, payment, rewards, training and working conditions. Finding of the study shows that when the leader behaves in an authoritarian way, employees specifically perceive nepotism in the hiring process. Practical Implications: This study sheds light on leadership literature by focusing on a leadership style that is viewed negatively in Western societies, but is found to be a sociocultural characteristic of India, Pakistan, China and Turkey. It provides an important insight about Turkish culture and a prevailing leadership style which is paternalistic leadership. Originality/Value: The study is a unique one that combines paternalistic leadership, discrimination and nepotism in a research model.

How Do Paternalistic Leader Behaviors Shape Xenophobia in Business Life?

“…This demand turns from the leaders of the employees to the expectation of creating a family atmosphere in the workplace. However, not being careful in the distribution of authority and benevolence may reveal employment discrimination arguments (Erden & Okten, 2019). Consequently, these arguments may bring hostility towards foreign workers because social, political, economic, and individual origins of xenophobia are intertwined.…”

“…According to some studies authoritarian is negatively related to job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (Aryee, Chen, Sun, & Debrah, 2007;Liang, Ling, & Hsieh, 2007), job satisfaction and psychological well-being (Chao & Kao, 2005). Likewise, workplaces where the authoritarian paternalistic leaders are in charge create unpleasant work outcomes, feelings of discrimination within the work environment (Erden & Okten, 2019), social classes, and separations (Grasmick et al, 1983). In this context, our reasoning is represented in the following hypothesis:…”

Paternalistic leadership as a double-edged sword: Analysis of the Sri Lankan President’s response to the COVID-19 crisis

“…Thus, xenophobic behaviours may occur as a result of hierarchical and family-like attributes innate in paternalistic leadership which may lead to exclusion and marginalisation of out-group or minority members. Similarly, emphasising the dark side of paternalistic leadership, researchers caution about the possibility of nepotism and racial discrimination (Erden and Ayse, 2019: Levine and Hogg, 2010).…”

“…Aycan, aptly explains that authoritarian leadership is about ‘people control’, whereas authoritative leadership is to do with ‘task control’. While the latter has positive effects such as enhancing self-efficacy, hope and optimism and motivating followers to work hard and attain goals (Aycan, 2006; Karakitapoğlu-Aygün et al, 2020), authoritarianism can lead to a range of negative consequences such as discrimination, corruption, nepotism and xenophobia (Erden and Ayse, 2019; Levine and Hogg, 2010; Okun et al, 2020). In this paper, we explore these issues and show how authoritarianism can be misrepresented within a paternalistic façade, making it popularly associated with more positive paternalistic attributes such as benevolence and morality.…”

Assessing the Link of Training and Development With Adaptive and Contextual Performance in the Presence of Organization Politics:

“…As highlighted by Erden & Otken (2019) discrimination in the execution of HR practices based on preferential treatment corresponding to the appointment, delegation, assessment, rewards, training, and working conditions might result in affecting not only the employee job performance but also the organizational performance. Besides, Shoss, Witt, & Vera (2012) found that conscientiousness and organizational politics together affect adaptive performance whereas Karatepe (2013) revealed that organizational politics affect extra-role (contextual) performance as well.…”