Title
Leader-Member Exchange and Agreeableness as Determinants of Facade of Conformity: A Moderated-Mediation Model involving Emotional Exhaustion, Trust in Management, Emotional Stability and Outcomes
Abstract
The aim of the study is to explore that whether quality of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationship and agreeableness lead an employee to create facade of conformity (FOC) and how creation of facade of conformity effects employee’s emotional exhaustion considering moderating effects of trust in management and employee’s emotional stability. Effects of emotional exhaustion on individual level outcomes including organizational citizenship behavior towards organization (OCBO), organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals (OCBI) and one’s ability of creativity have also been examined in the current study. The data were collected from four service sector organizations of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. Data Analysis of 303 employees using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to examine the serial multiple mediation model with analysis of moment structures (AMOS-20) found that quality of leader-member exchange relationship is negatively and significantly related to facade of conformity while agreeableness is positively and significantly related to facade of conformity. Effects of quality of leader-member exchange relationship on facade of conformity is moderated by employee’s trust in management.
Moderated-Mediation results of the study reveal that employees low in quality of leader-member exchange relationship but having higher levels of trust in management experience less degree of facade creation as compared to the employees who have lower level of trust in management or independent of the effects of trust in management. Facade of conformity leads to emotional exhaustion such that increase in facade of conformity increases employee’s level of emotional exhaustion. Moreover, effects of facade of conformity on emotional exhaustion is moderated by employee’s emotional stability. Findings suggest that employees who create higher degree of facade of conformity but have higher levels of emotional stability experience less emotional exhaustion as compared to the employees who have lower level of emotional stability or independent of the effects of emotional stability. In current study, no evidence was found that quality of leader-member exchange relationship and agreeableness directly effects emotional exhaustion without their effect on facade of conformity. The results show that facade of conformity fully mediates the association between leader-member exchange relationship/agreeableness and emotional exhaustion.
Results of the study also reveal that employee’s emotional exhaustion has significant negative effects on employee’s organizational citizenship behavior towards organization, organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals and creativity. Moreover, facade of conformity has direct negative effects on employee’s organizational citizenship behavior towards organization and organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals while no evidence has found pertaining to direct effects of facade of conformity on employee’s ability of creativity. However, facade of conformity has indirect negative and significant effects on organizational citizenship behavior towards organization, organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals and also on employee’s ability of creativity through its effect on emotional exhaustion. The result reveals that emotional exhaustion partially mediates the association between facade of conformity and organizational citizenship behavior towards organization/organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals and fully mediates the relationship between facade of conformity and one’s ability of creativity. Based on these findings, we have discussed theoretical and practical implications for managers along with limitations of the study and future directions.