Beneficiary contact moderates the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement.
The objective of this study was to examine the moderating effect of the breadth, depth and frequency of employee interaction with the beneficiaries of their work on the positive impact of authentic leadership on work engagement.
Investigating the boundary conditions of the relationship between leaders and followers is vital to enhance the positive effect of leadership. Authentic leadership has not previously been examined with respect to beneficiary contact as a specific situational factor. The researchers therefore set out to ascertain whether beneficiary contact has a strengthening or weakening effect on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement.
The researchers administered the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) and Grant’s scale on Beneficiary Contact.
The findings showed that beneficiary contact had a weakening effect on the positive relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement.
Ideally, organisations create environments conducive to work engagement in which leadership plays an important role. This study found that one factor in the work environment, namely beneficiary contact, might have an adverse effect on the positive relationship that authentic leadership has on work engagement. Leaders should therefore take organisational contextual realities into account, such as regular, intense interaction of employees with the beneficiaries of their work. This situation could create strain for individual employees, requiring additional organisational support.
Organisations need to recognise the impact of beneficiary contact on the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement. The researchers propose further studies on the influence of contextual variables on the relationship between leaders and followers.
Authentic leadership has a positive impact on followers, particularly when it comes to work engagement (Avolio & Gardner,
Another key construct in this study was employee engagement as it increases employee performance (Anitha,
Organisations need to invest in leadership development (Avolio, Reichard, Hannah, Walumbwa & Chan, researchers adequately investigate the relationship between organisational context components and leadership? Or, like with the weather, many are talking about it, but few are doing much about it, insofar as empirical research is concerned. (Porter & McLaughlin,
Avolio (
Against this background the purpose of this research was to answer the research question: ‘what is the strengthening or weakening (moderating) effect of beneficiary contact on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement?’
Authenticity involves both owning one’s personal experiences and acting in accordance with one’s true self (Gardner listening to multiple sources and stakeholders before making a decision; second, internalised moral perspective refers to being guided by internal moral standards that are used to self-regulate one’s behaviour; third, relational transparency refers to presenting one’s authentic self through openly sharing information and feelings as appropriate for situations; and fourth, self-awareness refers to demonstrated understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses and the way one makes sense of the world. (Avolio, Walumba & Weber,
Research has shown evidence of a positive relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement, and that investment in developing authentic leaders is therefore essential (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans & May,
Engagement is an important focus of the research into positive psychology (Schaufeli, Bakker & Salanova,
Beneficiary contact is:
the degree to which jobs and tasks are relationally structured to provide employees with opportunities for exposure to and interactions with the living, breathing human beings affected by their work. (Grant,
It allows employees to see their organisation’s goal being achieved when they serve the beneficiaries of their work (Grant represents how often the job provides opportunities to regularly interact with beneficiaries, second, contact breadth – the degree to which the job provides opportunities to interact with a variety of different beneficiaries, and third, contact depth is the degree to which the job provides opportunities for meaningful interactions with beneficiaries. (Grant,
The researchers, therefore, formulated the following hypothesis:
Two competing perspectives on beneficiary contact have emerged in recent literature. The first is the emotional labour and burnout (EL) perspective, which holds that frequent, direct, emotionally intense interactions with clients, customers and patients are likely to cause strain, stress and burnout (Bennett & Barkensjo, when jobs are structured to provide employees with contact with beneficiaries, employees can empathise, identify with and take the perspective of beneficiaries and thereby develop stronger affective commitments to them. (Grant & Parker,
The more frequent the communication, the lower the role ambiguity and the higher the perceived task significance (Humphrey, Nahrgang & Morgeson,
This study examined causal relationships between the independent variable, authentic leadership; the moderator, beneficiary contact; and the dependent variable, work engagement. Original survey data was required on these constructs (Saunders & Lewis,
The target population and unit of analysis of the study included all full-time employees in specific business units of two financial services companies: Company A and an outsourced administration company, Company B. The population was composed of 127 employees from Company A and 298 employees from Company B. The number of respondents from Company A was 93 (73% response rate) and 12 responses were incomplete. Company B had 35 respondents (12% response rate) with 12 incomplete responses. Only 81 of the Company A responses were deemed reliable and included in the study. The majority of these respondents had been working for the company for 0–4 years (16 had tenure of 0–2 years and 21 had tenure of 2–4 years), whereas a large proportion of respondents had tenure of 10 years or more. Of the 81 respondents, there were 47 females (58%) and 34 males (42%).
The instruments all used the Likert-type scale, featuring five anchors, from strongly agree to strongly disagree with the statement.
The researchers used the ‘16-item’ Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Copyright© 2007 Authentic Leadership Questionnaire ALQ) by Avolio, Gardner and Walumbwa (
The researchers measured work engagement using the ‘9-item’ Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) (Schaufeli
The researchers used Grant’s three 3-item scales (Grant,
Line managers provided the names and email addresses of employees. The researchers invited them, via email, to voluntary participate in the study. Data was collected via a web-based survey, accessed via a hyperlink included in the email. The first section of the survey collected biographical data and the second section consisted of a questionnaire combining the three questionnaires described above.
The researchers chose moderator regression models to examine relationships between the variables. A variance inflation factor (VIF) was calculated, to test for collinearity or ensure that the prediction of the outcome was independent (Enders,
The main and subconstructs of authentic leadership had a high Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94 and the subconstructs were therefore reliable, as per definition of Gushta and Rupp (
Means, standard deviations, reliabilities (Cronbach’s alpha) and Pearson’s correlations for all variables.
Variables | Mean | SD | Alpha | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. ALTR | 3.86 | 0.84 | 0.81 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2. ALME | 4.00 | 0.88 | 0.86 | 0.77 |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
3. ALBP | 3.66 | 0.95 | 0.76 | 0.69 |
0.66 |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
4. ALSA | 3.46 | 1.00 | 0.87 | 0.72 |
0.71 |
0.78 |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
5. BCB | 4.02 | 0.76 | 0.71 | 0.12 | 0.03 | 0.05 | 0.00 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
6. BCD | 4.10 | 0.80 | 0.77 | 0.16 | 0.06 | 0.08 | 0.06 | 0.76 |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
7. BCF | 3.73 | 0.91 | 0.77 | 0.10 | 0.04 | 0.08 | 0.02 | 0.72 |
0.70 |
- | - | - | - | - | - | - |
8. WEV | 3.50 | 0.81 | 0.79 | 0.59 |
0.53 |
0.52 |
0.50 |
0.44 |
0.37 |
0.29 |
- | - | - | - | - | - |
9. WED | 3.82 | 0.81 | 0.82 | 0.48 |
0.33 |
0.39 |
0.31 |
0.53 |
0.58 |
0.47 |
0.79 |
- | - | - | - | - |
10. WEA | 3.88 | 0.87 | n/a | 0.30 |
0.24 |
0.33 |
0.17 | 0.38 |
0.32 |
0.27 |
0.66 |
0.66 |
- | - | - | - |
11. AL | 3.76 | 0.81 | 0.94 | 0.90 |
0.88 |
0.86 |
0.90 |
0.06 | 0.10 | 0.07 | 0.60 |
0.43 |
0.29 |
- | - | - |
12. BC | 3.92 | 0.76 | 0.89 | 0.13 | 0.05 | 0.86 | 0.03 | 0.88 |
0.88 |
0.93 |
0.39 |
0.57 |
0.35 |
0.08 | - | - |
13. WE | 3.69 | 0.74 | 0.90 | 0.54 |
0.43 |
0.47 |
0.40 |
0.52 |
0.52 |
0.41 |
0.92 |
0.95 |
0.75 |
0.52 |
0.52 |
- |
ALTR, Authentic Leadership Relational Transparency; ALME, Authentic Leadership Internalised Moral Perspective; ALBP, Authentic Leadership Balanced Processing; ALSA, Authentic Leadership Self-awareness; BCB, Beneficiary Contact Breadth; BCD, Beneficiary Contact Depth; BCF, Beneficiary Contact Frequency; WEV, Work Engagement Vigour; WED, Work Engagement Dedication; WEA, Work Engagement Absorption; AL, Authentic Leadership; BC, Beneficiary Contact; WE, Work Engagement.
*,
The measurement of Hypothesis 1, that there is a linear relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement, resulted in the
As the analysis of variance test determined a significant
In contrast to what was expected, the moderating effect of beneficiary contact had a negative
Linear relationship and moderating effect.
Variables | Dependent variable: |
Work engagement: Parameter estimate | Standard error |
---|---|---|---|
Authentic leadership | 1 | 0.45 |
0.07 |
Beneficiary contact (BC) | 1 | 0.48 |
0.07 |
Moderator effect ( |
1 | -0.17 |
0.07 |
Lower BC (mean -1) | - | 0.62 | - |
Higher BC (mean +1) | - | 0.27 | - |
*,
This section describes the results of the moderator effect of the conditions of beneficiary contact, as discussed under Hypothesis 3.
Results of moderator regression analysis on beneficiary contact’s effect on individual scales of authentic leadership and work engagement.
Variable | ∆ |
SE | Higher BC | Lower BC | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BC Frequency (a) | 1 | 0.42 | -0.14 | 0.07 | n/a | n/a |
BC Breadth (b) | 1 | 0.52 | -0.16 |
0.07 | 0.29 | 0.63 |
BC Depth (c) | 1 | 0.51 | -0.21 |
0.07 | 0.24 | 0.67 |
WE Vigour (a) | 1 | 0.46 | -0.04 | 0.07 | n/a | n/a |
WE Dedication (b) | 1 | 0.49 | -0.19 |
0.07 | 0.16 | 0.55 |
WE Absorption (c) | 1 | 0.27 | -0.34 |
0.09 | -0.07 | 0.61 |
AL Transparency (a) | 1 | 0.51 | -0.16 |
0.06 | 0.26 | 0.59 |
AL Moral perspective (b) | 1 | 0.43 | -0.16 | 0.08 | n/a | n/a |
AL Balanced processing (c) | 1 | 0.44 | -0.08 | 0.06 | n/a | n/a |
AL Self-awareness (d) | 1 | 0.44 | -0.20 |
0.07 | 0.19 | 0.60 |
Frequency (a), breadth (b) and depth (c) of beneficiary contact’s moderating effect. Impact on individual constructs of work engagement, namely vigour (a), dedication (b) and absorption (c).
*,
The researchers investigated the individual constructs of work engagement as discussed under Hypothesis 2 and this section provides the results.
Beneficiary contact had no moderating effect on the impact of authentic leadership on vigour.
Interestingly, in the cases of dedication and absorption, the moderating effects were significant.
The researchers illustrated the results of the investigation around the beneficiary contact as a moderator on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement in
Illustration of results on individual constructs investigated in this study.
This study examined three hypotheses around the moderator effect of beneficiary contact on the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement. The results supported the outcomes of previous studies, where authentic leadership had a linear relationship with work engagement (Gardner
The theoretical contribution of the study contributes the contingency theory notion of ‘one size does not fit all’. The researchers asked whether the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement would be universal, or be affected by situational variables, such as a job design allowing for frequency, breadth and depth of relational exchange with the beneficiaries of work. The moderator effect was indeed determined to be statistically significant. It was confirmed that, for the sample group, beneficiary contact weakened the positive effect of authentic leadership on work engagement, as illustrated in
Graphical depiction of the moderating effect of beneficiary contact on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement.
At the authentic leadership level AL0 the level of work engagement is WE0. Beneficiary contact has the effect of shifting the line to the left and decreasing work engagement from WE0 to WE1 at the same level of authentic leadership, AL0. This finding is in line with Kenny’s (
Two competing perspectives on the effect of beneficiary contact were discussed earlier in this article’s literary review. The first is the emotional labour and burnout perspective that frequent and emotionally intense interactions with customers and clients are likely to cause strain, stress and burnout (Bennett & Barkensjo,
The results revealed that affective communications, such as rude or hostile customer feedback, may have the effect of reducing motivation or performance (Grandley & Diamond,
The results of the data analysis in this study endorsed two of the individual constructs, breadth and depth of beneficiary contact, as having a moderating effect on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement. The dimension of frequency was not statistically significant. The literature suggests that those employees that interact with beneficiaries frequently have a lower role ambiguity, as well as higher perceived task significance (Grandley & Diamond,
The study substantiated some elements of Hypothesis 2, that beneficiary contact has a moderating effect on the impact of authentic leadership on the individual constructs of work engagement. Beneficiary contact did not have a significant effect on vigour. This ties in with the literature, where work engagement (vigour) and burnout (exhaustion) do not form opposite sides of the same continuum and were found to represent independent dimensions (Demerouti
Leaders could increase work engagement in situations where clients are demanding by focusing on developing their followers’ confidence and pride, as well as reinforcing their achievements and celebrating successes. It is not always possible to design jobs with lower levels, or varying levels, of beneficiary contact, and thus the organisation will need to find alternative means to counter this negative effect. Strain, stress and burnout are possible outcomes, and employees need to be trained on how to deal with difficult clients, and handle the stress of negative encounters. Management needs to be mindful of the potential for lower work engagement, and should implement other measures to increase work engagement, such as providing additional job resources (Bakker & Demerouti,
The researchers ultimately restricted the sample to one financial services company and therefore the findings might be limited for use as a guide for financial services companies. The research was conducted as a cross-sectional study, which does not provide the depth of analysis of a longitudinal study. The research was limited to the focus on authentic leadership, and did not provide an analysis of the impact of various leadership styles. The research did not examine the other causal factors that influence work engagement, such as job resources or personality traits of employees. The study was limited to one financial services company and future studies should include a larger number of employees, across a variety of organisations, to examine consistency of results. Future research should address the role of different types of beneficiaries and investigate the moderating role that they have on work engagement. Further research should manipulate and measure the other leadership constructs, such as empowering leadership and transformational leadership, in this model. Further studies could investigate the moderating impact of numerous other organisational context variables, such as culture or climate, on authentic leadership.
This study focused on ascertaining whether beneficiary contact had a moderating effect on the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement, and drilled down into the variables within the individual constructs with the same objective. The moderating effect of beneficiary contact was concluded to be a negative effect, although not all of the results were deemed significant. The researchers proposed that the reason for beneficiary contact having a negative moderating effect, and thus decreasing the impact of authentic leadership on work engagement, was that beneficiary contact had an emotional labour and burnout focus, where emotionally intense interactions with beneficiaries were likely to cause strain, stress and burnout (Grant & Parker, In the public world of work, it is often part of an individual’s job to accept uneven exchanges, to be treated with disrespect or anger by a client, all the while closeting into fantasy the anger one would like to respond with. (Hochschild,
The study revealed how the impact of authentic leadership was contingent upon different types of beneficiary contacts.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
C.B.S. made conceptual contributions and was the research supervisor of the project. S.L.E. was responsible for performing the empirical study and C.B.S. was responsible for compiling the article.