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Paradoxical leadership incongruence and Chinese individuals’ followership behaviors: moderation effects of hierarchical culture and perceived strength of human resource management system

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Abstract

We examined the effect of paradoxical leadership incongruence on Chinese individuals’ followership behaviors. We also hypothesized that paradoxical leadership incongruence (and congruence) will differentially predict followership behaviors, with hierarchical culture and the perceived strength of the HRM system serving as moderators. With multi-source and multi-wave matched data and polynomial regression, our results corroborate the following: (1) paradoxical leadership incongruence (and congruence) can have consequential effects on followership behaviors, (2) paradoxical leadership incongruence increases followership behavior better when hierarchical culture is high, and (3) paradoxical leadership incongruence motivates followership behavior better when the perceived strength of the HRM system is high.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71672031, 71502094, 71632005 and 71332002), The Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 16YJA630018), The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. N160602001), The Social Science Foundation of Liaoning in China (Grant No. L17AGL005), and National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71772138 and 71472137).

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Correspondence to Jiaqi Yan or Yahua Cai.

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Jia, J., Yan, J., Cai, Y. et al. Paradoxical leadership incongruence and Chinese individuals’ followership behaviors: moderation effects of hierarchical culture and perceived strength of human resource management system. Asian Bus Manage 17, 313–338 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41291-018-0043-9

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