The Impact And Mechanism Of Followership On Employee Career Growth

As the economic system and technology are making progress rapidly,the increased uncertainty of domestic and foreign markets can always change the situation.The exaggeration of leader personal greatness makes companies easily lose diverse information sources.The subordinates are not only the performers but also the information collectors.It is good for companies to get diverse information if they let the subordinates utilize followership,moreover,it helps leaders to make a more accurate decision and thus the companies gets a better development in dynamics competition environments.For this reason,followership are meaningful to the company managerial practices.So far,some researchers have made efforts to explore the conceptions,structures and measures of followership.Although these researches have made abundant progresses,the amount of empirical studies of followership remain low relatively,especially the impact of followership on individual level.Drawing on social exchange theory,this study explores the impact of followership on career growth and its mechanism.This study offers some managerial implication for the companies.This model was tested on a sample of 222 subordinates from 4 hotels in Hangzhou City which has a reputation on service industry in China.The results indicate that:(1)Followership is positively related to employee career growth;(2)Followership is positively related to LMX;(3)LMX is positively related to employee career growth;(4)Followership is positively related to LMX;(5)Guanxi with supervisor is positively related to employee career growth;(6)LMX and Guanxi with supervisor fully mediates the relationship between followership and employee career growth;(7)Emotional intelligence moderates the positive effect of followership on LMX and guanxi with supervisor,the effect will be stronger under high level of emotional intelligence.