Haina Zhang

Authentic leadership theory development: theorizing on Chinese philosophy

As an emerging paradigm, authentic leadership has attracted increasing interest. Our study contributes to developing authentic leadership theory, from a sociological and philosophical perspective, using a case study methodology in the Chinese context. Using interviews and observations in eight Chinese organizations, we examine the Western authentic leadership model and develop a theory of authentic leadership in the Chinese context. Chinese authentic leaders concentrate on being authentic to ‘the self’, consistent with the Western literature, but place even greater emphasis on being authentic to ‘the context’ of daily practice. Thus, we propose a new authentic leadership model that dynamically integrates the two categories of authenticity, supported by evidence derived in the Chinese context.

Perceptions of Negative Workplace Gossip A Self-Consistency Theory Framework

We present and test a self-consistency theory framework for gossip: that perceived negative workplace gossip influences our self-perceptions and, in turn, this influences our behaviors. Using supervisor-subordinate dyadic time-lagged data (n = 403), we demonstrated that perceived negative workplace gossip adversely influenced target employees’ organization-based self-esteem, which, in turn, influenced their citizenship behavior directed at the organization and at its members. Moreover, by integrating victimization theory into our framework, we further demonstrated that negative affectivity, an individual’s dispositional tendency, not only moderated the self-consistency process but also predicted perceived negative workplace gossip. Our study therefore shifts attention to the target of negative workplace gossip and in doing so offers a promising new direction for future research. Implications to theory and practice are discussed.

Contemporary Leadership Approaches in Chinese Business

This chapter provides research results from a study of contemporary leadership approaches (i.e., paternalistic, charismatic, transformational, aesthetic, authentic, and pragmatic leadership) in eight Chinese organizations. Data were collected from case studies in four private-owned enterprises (POEs) and four state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through both interviews and questionnaires. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide contextual analysis of these findings by applying the concept of field from Bourdieus sociology. This research contributes to the leadership literature by generalizing Western leadership theories to the Chinese context as well as by giving an insight into contemporary leadership approaches in modern Chinese business by deeply contextualizing these leadership behaviors.