Research On The Effect Of Manager Taking Charge In Business Organizations

Change and innovation are eternal topic in the field of organizational management.At present,with the environment becoming more and more complex and unpredictable,only by seeking change can an organization seek development in the period of transformation and upgrading.However,it is far from enough to rely on formal and limited change initiatives at the organizational level.The discovery of change opportunities and the implementation of change initiatives require the efforts of every member of the organization.Thus,in the past two decades,change-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors(OCBs),for example voice and taking charge,have received a great deal of attention from scholars and practitioners.Change-oriented OCB characterized by challenging the status quo rather than maintaining it,is regarded as an important guarantee for the survival and success of the organization.Taking charge entails voluntary and constructive efforts,by individual employees,to effect organizationally functional change with respect to how work is executed within the contexts of their jobs,work units,or organizations.Compared with the voice,taking charge has more of a behavioral focus,emphasizing not only making suggestions for change but also trying to bring change about.Indeed,a substantial amount of research indicates that taking charge helps to promote organizational innovation,enhance the adaptability and viability of the organization,and also plays a positive role in personal success and work performance.However,the common phenomenon in organizations is: although many employees have the opportunity to initiate changes that are beneficial to the organization,they are afraid of offending the leaders and their colleagues when changing the status quo.In the end,they choose to stick to the old rules rather than innovation.Therefore,how to stimulate taking charge of all members in organization is essentially important.Previous research on taking charge was only limited to employees or subordinates,ignoring the role modeling of managers for such risky behaviors,and also paid less attention to the impact of taking charge on well-being.Therefore,this dissertation focused on the taking charge behavior of managers and attempted to explore a series of scientific issues using questionnaire surveys.First of all,we studied the structure model of taking charge in the context of Chinese organizations,and investigated the differences of manager taking charge in demographic and organizational characteristics.After that,we took an observer perspective and drew on social learning theory to examine whether,why,and when manager taking charge can affect subordinate and group taking charge.Finally,drawing on conservation of resources theory and job demand-resource model,we took an actor perspective to investigate the doubleedged sword effect of manager taking charge on the managers themselves.Through theoretical analysis and empirical research,the main findings of this research are as follows:(1)With the confirmatory factor analysis,reliability and validity test,we found that the Chinese version of taking charge scale with single dimension of six items had a good model fit and was reliable and effective to measure manager taking charge in our study.Besides that,the results of one-way ANOVA,independent-samples T test and multiple comparison analysis indicated that the manager taking charge was different on demographic and organizational variables.(2)The results of multilevel analysis of the supervisor–subordinate dyad data indicated that manager taking charge had a trickle-down effect on subordinates.To be specific,manager taking charge was positively related to subordinate taking charge behavior with reward expectation and risk perception acting as mediators for this relationship,indicating that manager taking charge positively influenced subordinate taking charge by increasing subordinates' reward expectation and decreasing risk perception of taking charge.At the same time,taking-charge self-efficacy had a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between reward expectation and subordinate taking charge,also the mediation effect.However,the moderating effect of taking-charge self-efficacy on the relationship between risk perception and subordinate taking charge,as well as its mediating mechanism is not significant.(3)Through the multilevel analysis of group level data,we found that(i)manager taking charge had a trickle-down effect on group behavior with group belief in the value of taking charge acting as a mediator for this relationship;(ii)group taking charge was positively related to group performance;(?)group belief and group taking charge sequentially mediated the effect of manager taking charge on group performance;(?)environmental uncertainty positively moderated the relationship between manager taking charge and group belief in taking charge,also the chain mediation mechanism.(4)We found the double-edged sword effect of manager taking charge on their work well-being.On the one hand,work load played a mediating role between manager taking charge and emotional exhaustion.That is,manager taking charge induced emotional exhaustion through high work load,thereby reducing work well-being.On the other hand,the mediating effect of leader-member exchange between the relationship of manager taking charge and emotional exhaustion /work vitality is significant.Therefore,manager taking charge can improve work well-being(high work vitality and low emotional exhaustion)through leader-member exchange.In terms of total effect,the positive effect is greater than the negative,thus manager taking charge is conducive to the promotion of work well-being.This dissertation directly focused on the taking charge behavior of managers rather than employees or subordinates,grasping the challenging and risky characteristics of the behavior.We clarified the mechanism of the trickle-down effect of manager taking charge on subordinates and groups,and the mechanism of "double-edged sword" effect on manager themselves.The findings of the research not only promoted the research of change-oriented behavior but also provided some reference for the management practice of organization change and innovation.