The Influence Of Need For Employee Involvement On New Generation Employees’ Leadership Preference

All organizations are inlfuenced by the values and preferences of the newgeneration. Failure on the part of managers to understand and adjust appropriately tothe demands of new generations entering the workplace can result in mis?understandings, miscommunications, and mixed signals, and can affect employeeproductivity, innovation, and corporate citizenship, ultimately resulting in problemswith employee retention and turnover. What kind of leadership style do the newgeneration employees prefer still needs direct empirical solutions in Chinese context.New generation employees’ need for employee involvement has long beenqualitatively assumed to influence their leadership preference. However, therelationship is not clear yet. And the mechanism between new generation employees’need for employee involvement and their leadership preference has precipitated aninterest among organizational researchers.The purpose of this study was to examine what kind of leadership style does thenew generation employees prefer, and how it comes into being by their need foremployee involvement. Data was from a total of795samples including594newgeneration employees and201traditional employees from more than50companies.The reliability test and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the measurement hadgood reliability and validity. SPSS and Amos were used to test the hypotheses.Theresults indicated that the need for employee involvement did not significantlyinfluence traditional employees’ leadership preference, but did on new generationemployees’. The perception of employee involvement and trust in leader moderatedthe negati’ve relation between the new generation employees need for employeeinvolvement and their preference of command-driven and laissez-faire leadership.Furthermore, through their positive preference of participative leadership style, theneed for employee involvement positively affected new generation employees’preference of coach type leadership.The present study contributes to our understanding of the need and preference ofnew generation employees by explaining in more detail psychological mechanisms. Italso enriches the domestic research theory of the workplace intergenerationaldifference. Discussing of the relation between need for employee involvement andleadership preference is an application and development of the path-goal theory in China, which leads the leadership theory from leader-centric perspectives tofollower-centric perspectives. The present empirical study indicates that managersshould face up to the psychological need and preference of new generation employees,according to their need for employee involvement to change the leadership stylecontingently, provide specific work target and instant feedback, provide support forthe new generation employees, achieve a benign social construction process betweensuperior and subordinate, and fundamentally stimulate their sense of belonging andwork enthusiasm.