The influence of leader power and conflict handling styles on employee outcomes: A study on information technology professionals in turkey

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of leaders' power bases and styles of handling conflict with subordinates on employee outcomes. For this purpose, a research on information technology (IT) professionals in Turkey is conducted. As to employee outcomes, behavioral and attitudinal compliance, organization citizenship behavior, and intention to quit are covered. Maximizing leaders' influence and how to handle conflict are crucial issues for organizations. In addition, IT employees work in a highly demanding work environment. In such an environment, the listed employee outcomes are critically important. A convenience sampling was used, and 353 Turkish IT professionals participated in the survey. The outcomes show that leaders' cooperative and dominating conflict management styles (CMS), 'expert and referent power', and legitimate power positively influence subordinates? behavioral compliance. In addition, 'expert and referent power' and legitimate power positively influence attitudinal compliance while avoiding and dominating CMS negatively affect attitudinal compliance. The findings also indicate that cooperative CMS and legitimate power positively influence helping organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Cooperative and dominating CMS and legitimate power positively affect civic virtue OCB. Dominating CMS and legitimate power negatively influence sportsmanship OCB. The outcomes also show that 'expert and referent power', and reward power negatively affect intention to quit. The findings can be beneficial for organizational leaders and human resource practitioners in understanding the influence of leaders' bases of power, and styles of handling conflict on IT professionals' listed employee outcomes. The results may also be useful for organizations in increasing leadership effectiveness.