The Role of Sense of Power in Alleviating Emotional Exhaustion in Frontline Managers: A Dual Mediation Model

Abstract

Frontline managers have many responsibilities and often suffer from emotional exhaustion. Drawing on the job demands–resources model, this research proposes and examines a cognitive–affective dual mediation model to explain how frontline managers’ sense of power affects their emotional exhaustion through managerial self-efficacy (cognitive path) and affective commitment (affective path). A cross-sectional study design was employed, and the theoretical model was tested using a three-wave survey among 227 on-the-job Master of Business Administration (MBA) students (52.86% male) in China, who serve as frontline managers in different kinds of organization. The regression and bootstrapping analysis results showed that the frontline managers’ sense of power was significantly negatively related to emotional exhaustion. In other words, the more powerful they felt, the less exhausted they felt. Furthermore, having a sense of power enhanced managerial self-efficacy, which mitigated emotional exhaustion. Sense of power also boosted frontline managers’ affective commitment, alleviating emotional exhaustion. We conclude with a discussion of this study’s theoretical and practical contributions and future research directions.

Why Does Sense of Power Alleviate Emotional Exhaustion?

“…Building on COR theory and the psychology of power framework, our study proposed and demonstrated psychological safety and organizational embeddedness as mediators linking sense of power to emotional exhaustion. By doing so, our research goes beyond the extant psychological mechanisms (e.g., affective commitment; Liu & Zhou, 2020) and confirms that psychological safety and organizational embeddedness are new pivotal psychological mechanisms associated with perceptions of interpersonal and organizational environments through which sense of power relieves emotional exhaustion. Overall, our research provides a deeper understanding of the link between sense of power and emotional exhaustion.…”

“…Employees with a high sense of power not only deem that they can control their interpersonal environments (Sherman et al., 2020) but also perceive themselves as having high control over their organizational environments (Lin et al, 2019), which shapes their perceptions of the organizational environments. Previous work has found that sense of power enhances one’s affective attachment to the organization (Liu & Zhou, 2020). Following this, based on the psychology of power framework, employees with an elevated sense of power may have increased organizational embeddedness, which captures one’s cognitive and emotional attachment to an organization (B.…”

When do low‐power customers complain? The joint effects of chronic sense of personal power and complaint success on complaining intentions

“…Although chronic sense of power seems to be a universal construct (Anderson et al, 2012), its efficiency may vary based on the cultural environment. For example, one research demonstrated that people in societies with high power distance orientations may benefit less from personal sense of power (Lin et al, 2017), whereas another research showed that even Chinese participants, who come from high power distance culture may use their chronic sense of power as a buffer against negative states (Liu & Zhou, 2020).…”