Understanding the Relationship between Authentic Leadership and Employee Cynicism, Tolerance to Workplace Incivility and Job Search Behavior via the Moderating Role of Team Psychological Capital

In today’s highly competitive marketplace, employees are faced with a continuous pressure to perform well in the organizations. Among various leadership styles, authentic leadership is a promising style because it helps to develop harmonious leader–follower relationships by treating followers with authenticity and promoting followers’ self-development. With an increasing trend in unemployment rates, aggravated volume of tasks to be accomplished, and lack of motivation, employees may become disengaged and subsequently display negative behaviors. This is particularly relevant to the hotel industry which is marked by unskilled tasks, fierce rivalry, and low wages. In order to keep employees away from negative behaviors (employee cynicism, tolerance to workplace incivility, and job search behavior), authentic leadership might be the most effective leadership style to address these issues and ensure a workplace culture where employees do not engage in counter-productive work behaviors. This study examines the effect of authentic leadership on employee cynicism, tolerance to workplace incivility, and job search behavior. More specifically, the study hypothesizes that team psychological capital moderating the relationship between authentic leadership and employee cynicism, tolerance to workplace incivility, and job search behavior. The sample consisted of 45 intact team members consisting of 331 employees from 5 and 4 stars international hotels in Jordan. The survey was developed in English and then back-translated to Arabic by two linguistic experts. A participatory pilot survey was conducted with 15 hotel employees, and the result showed that the questions were fully understood by the employees. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed at time 1. Each employee received a survey packet containing a cover letter from the researchers requesting their participation. The cover letter explained the purpose of the study, and the approval of the hotel management. Approximately 2 weeks later, the employees who completed the time 1 (n=398) survey were given a second questionnaire that assessed employee cynicism, workplace incivility, job search behavior and demographic data. To test the hypotheses, regression analyses was performed. The results showed that authentic leadership had significant and negative relationship with employee cynicism, tolerance to workplace incivility, and job search behavior. The moderating effect of team psychological capital on the relationship between authentic leadership and employee cynicism and job search behavior were non-significant. Team psychological capital partially moderated the effect of authentic leadership on tolerance to workplace incivility. The managerial implications, theoretical contributions, and limitations of the study are discussed at the end of this thesis.