The Role of Need for Leadership on The Relationship between Implicit Leadership Theories and Leader-Member Exchange in the Saudi Business Context: A follower-perspective

Abstract

This research examines the moderating effect of need for leadership on the relationship between ILT-similarity and multi-dimensional LMX from followers’ perspective. Moreover, it examines the influence of individuals’ cultural orientations on perceived need for leadership and multi-dimensional LMX. The researcher conducted three studies (i.e. two pre-studies and a main study) using samples of Saudi full-time employees drawn from profitable companies operating in the oil and petrochemical sector in Saudi Arabia. The sample sizes were 49, 160, 333 for the first pre-study, the second pre-study, and the main study, respectively.
The two pre-studies utilised qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore the Saudi ILTs and develop a more culturally adequate instrument to measure ILTs in the Saudi context. The first pre-study was concerned with generating items describing Saudi leaders, following the procedure of Schyns and Schilling’s (2011) study. The second pre- study was concerned with identifying factors from the items generated in the first pre-study. The first pre-study’s findings show that the Saudi ILTs of leaders in general consist of positive and negative attributes. Interestingly, more negative attributes emerged when describing Saudi leaders than in previous studies. Overall, the attributes reflected all Schyns and Schilling’s 15 categories plus one new category. A two-factor solution emerged in the second pre-study, and a 36-item scale was developed for use in the main study.
The main study examined the hypothesised model which investigates the moderating effect of need for leadership on ILT-similarity and LMX relationship, and the influence of cultural orientations on perceived need for leadership and LMX, using the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The analysis revealed a significant effect of ILT-similarity on followers’ perception of LMX, however no significant effect was found for the hypothesised moderating role of need for leadership. Further, mixed results were found in terms of the cultural orientations’ influence on perceived need for leadership and LMX multi-dimensions.
This study contributes to the existing literature by providing evidence for the effect of followers’ perception of ILT-similarity at the perceptual level on LMX, and the effects of cultural orientations on need for leadership and LMX.