TY - JOUR
T1 - Leadership and Job Satisfaction
T2 - Addressing Endogeneity With Panel Data From a Field Experiment
AU - An, Seung Ho
AU - Meier, Kenneth J.
AU - Ladenburg, Jacob
AU - Westergård-Nielsen, Niels
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research, Project No. 1327-00015B.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - The interaction between leaders and employees plays a key role in determining organizational outcomes and performance. Although the human resources management literature posits positive effects of leadership behaviors on employee job satisfaction, the causal path between the two is unclear due to potential endogeneity issues inherent in this relationship. To address the issue, we first provide theoretical explanations about why and how transformational and transactional leadership behaviors would enhance employee job satisfaction. Second, we test the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee job satisfaction using panel data from a year-long randomized field experiment that engaged leaders and employees from hundreds of public and private organizations in Denmark. Primary findings suggest that although leadership training does not have direct effects on changes in employee job satisfaction, leadership-training-induced changes in leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and verbal rewards) are positively related to changes in job satisfaction.
AB - The interaction between leaders and employees plays a key role in determining organizational outcomes and performance. Although the human resources management literature posits positive effects of leadership behaviors on employee job satisfaction, the causal path between the two is unclear due to potential endogeneity issues inherent in this relationship. To address the issue, we first provide theoretical explanations about why and how transformational and transactional leadership behaviors would enhance employee job satisfaction. Second, we test the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee job satisfaction using panel data from a year-long randomized field experiment that engaged leaders and employees from hundreds of public and private organizations in Denmark. Primary findings suggest that although leadership training does not have direct effects on changes in employee job satisfaction, leadership-training-induced changes in leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and verbal rewards) are positively related to changes in job satisfaction.
KW - employee job satisfaction
KW - field experiment
KW - leadership training
KW - panel data
KW - transactional leadership
KW - transformational leadership
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U2 - 10.1177/0734371X19839180
DO - 10.1177/0734371X19839180
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063950668
VL - 40
SP - 589
EP - 612
JO - Review of Public Personnel Administration
JF - Review of Public Personnel Administration
SN - 0734-371X
IS - 4
ER -