Social Comparison Processes and Leadership in Organizations

• Applicant: Professor Christian Tröster, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance ; Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 288207912

The leader treatment that employees experience has important effects on employee behavior and organizational performance. But how do employees judge how well their leader treats them? There is growing evidence that employees compare their leader treatment to the leader treatment that their coworkers receive. If they are treated better they judge their relationship with their leaders as of high quality, feel more positively about themselves, and are more willing to exert effort on behalf of the organizations. These findings have fundamental consequences for existing leadership theories. Indeed, the existing leadership social comparison research could explain variance in employees work behavior above and beyond the traditional leadership theories. However, these findings also point to a leadership dilemma. If employees are only willing to exert extra effort if other coworkers are treated less well by the leader it is virtually impossible for leaders to avoid that those how are treated less well exert less effort. And if leaders treat everyone equally well, there might be no employee who is motivated to go the extra mile. This proposal seeks to investigate the motivational processes behind leadership social comparisons to inform leaders how to avoid the costs of leadership social comparisons and reap its benefits. For this purpose, three studies are proposed. The first study will investigate equity concerns in leadership social comparisons and test if differences in leader treatment can be framed as fair if leaders treat their employees according to their relative performance. The second study will investigate leadership social comparisons in diverse teams. Theoretically, social comparison concerns should be stronger for minority group members in diverse teams. Finally, we will investigate whether employees comparisons with coworkers who are treated better by their leader can also motivate extra effort in an attempt to gain the leader s approval. In sum, these studies have the potential to help this young but promising field to theoretically mature and provide leaders with important insights how to lead their employees and advance their organizations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Steffen R. Giessner; Professorin Dr. Wendy van Ginkel