Followers' Satisfaction From Working With Group-Prototypic Leaders: Promotion Focus as Moderator

Antonio Pierro , Lavinia Cicero , E. Tory Higgins

What is the effect of followers' promotion focus on their satisfaction from working with a leader who is prototypic of their group? We propose that high (. low) promotion-focused followers will respond more positively to a group-prototypic leader as a way to advance the in-group ("promote us"), which would increase their satisfaction from working with that leader. Results from an organizational survey and a scenario experiment supported the predicted two-way interaction between promotion focus and leaders' group prototypicality: the positive relation between leaders' group prototypicality and followers' satisfaction from working with their leader was significantly greater for high than low promotion-focused employees. No such interactive effect was found for employees' level of prevention focus. We discuss how these findings extend social identity theory's analysis of leadership.

Mots clés: Social identity model of organizational leadership; leader prototypicality; Regulatory focus; Promotion focus; Job satisfaction; Leadership satisfaction

Domaines: Psychologie et comportements

Antonio Pierro, Lavinia Cicero, E. Tory Higgins. Followers' Satisfaction From Working With Group-Prototypic Leaders: Promotion Focus as Moderator. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2009, 45 (5), pp.1105. ⟨10.1016/j.jesp.2009.06.020⟩. ⟨hal-00713413⟩