Multi-study investigation reveals leader blame taking reduces delegation-induced hindrance and turnover in employees, highlighting critical leadership boundary conditions.
Key Points
To examine how leader credit sharing and blame taking moderate employee challenge versus hindrance appraisals of delegation and subsequent behavioral responses.
Conducted two scenario-based experiments examining the challenge pathway (Study 1a, N = 217) and the hindrance pathway (Study 1b, N = 218).
Conducted a two-wave field survey testing both appraisal pathways concurrently (Study 2, N = 330).
Leader blame taking consistently weakened the positive relationship between delegation and hindrance appraisal across all studies, resulting in reduced turnover intention.
Leader credit sharing enhanced the positive link between delegation and challenge appraisal, increasing proactive taking charge in the experimental setting, though this finding did not replicate in the field study.