Getting Ahead, Getting Along, and Getting Prosocial: Examining Extraversion Facets, Peer Reactions, and Leadership Emergence

Title:   Getting Ahead, Getting Along, and Getting Prosocial: Examining Extraversion Facets, Peer Reactions, and Leadership Emergence

Speaker:  ZHANG, Zhen (Professor, Arizona State University)

Time:  4:10-5:40pm, Oct. 12, 2018 (Friday)

Venue: Wang Daohan Conference Room, Lingnan Hall

Language: Chinese/English

Abstract:

Drawing upon socioanalytic theory of personality, the authors of this study hypothesize and test inverted U-shaped relationships between team members’ assertiveness and warmth (i.e., the “getting ahead” and “getting along” facets of extraversion) and peers’ reactions (i.e., advice seeking by peers and peer liking, respectively) which, in turn, predict members’ emergence as informal leaders in self-managed teams. Integrating research on prosocial motivation, we also examine prosocial motivation as a moderator that enhances the positive curvilinear influences of assertiveness and warmth on peer reactions. Based on 223 members in 69 student project teams (Study 1) and 337 employees in 79 self-managed work teams (Study 2), we found support for the inverted U-shaped relationships between assertiveness and advice seeking by peers, and between warmth and peer liking. Further, prosocial motivation enhances the inverted U-shaped effect of assertiveness in Study 2 and those effects of warmth in both studies. Advice seeking by peers and peer liking, in turn, were positively related to leadership emergence in both studies. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications for dispositional and motivational factors that shape peer reactions and facilitate leadership emergence in teams.

Introduction of speaker:

Dr. Zhen Zhang is the professor of management and the Dean’s Council of Distinguished Scholar in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Dr. Zhang obtained his Ph.D. in Human Resources and Industrial Relations in 2008 from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on leadership process and leadership development, work teams and groups, biological basis of work behavior, the intersection between organizational behavior and entrepreneurship, and advanced research methods. His work has appeared in several leading management journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Leadership Quarterly. Dr. Zhang also published research methods-oriented papers in Psychological Methods and Organizational Research Methods. One of his papers was the winner of the 2013 Wiley Award for Excellence in Survey Research of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Dr. Zhang is an associate editor in Personnel Psychology, and is also on the editorial review boards of Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and the Leadership Quarterly.