The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Paradoxical Leadership to Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Introduction

With the rapid economic development and the uncertainty of the external environment, there are more management paradox problems in the organization. For instance, organizations not only ensure the acquisition of short-term profits, but also pursue long-term profits. In the past, when leaders dealt with problems about short-term profits and long-term profits, they usually choose only one of these ways to profit.¹ Although this approach solved the surface problem in a short time, it did not solve the contradiction behind the problem, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the company.² Leader with paradoxical thinking adopt the thinking of differentiation and integration to deal with the contradictory problems in the organization. By choosing solutions of both, they can capture the essence of contradictory problems in the organization.

As the quintessence of Eastern wisdom, the philosophy of yin and yang contains the dialectical thought of unity of opposites, which is of great practical implication for dealing with organizational paradoxes arising in complex environments. The idea of unity of opposites is the core idea of paradoxical leadership. The research framework of Zhang et al 1 is based on the traditional Chinese “yin and yang” philosophy, and defines paradoxical leadership as a kind of paradoxical integration thinking through the comprehensive application of “both” to meet the needs of the organization and the needs of employees at the same time, this leadership style that looks at and solves problems from a dialectical and unified perspective, in order to play a synergistic effect of integrating contradictions, which helps to better deal with contradictions and conflicts in the organization.^1,3 Organizational citizenship behavior, as an important out-of-role behavior, has a significant promotion effect on the improvement of inter-organizational interpersonal relationships and the improvement of organizational performance and organizational cohesion,^4,5 and it is effective factor to deal with the fierce market competition environment and gain competitive advantage.⁶

The leadership style is an important environmental factor that affects employees’ work attitudes and behaviors.⁷ The existing research literature has confirmed that transformational leadership,^8,9 authoritarian leadership,^10,11 contingency leadership,¹² service leadership,² benevolent leadership¹³ and other leadership styles have a significant effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Paradoxical leadership has a significant impact on employees’ proactive behavior^1,3 and advocacy behavior,¹⁴ while organizational citizenship behavior is a kind of typical out-of-role behaviors, there is no literature that explores the relationship between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. According to social exchange theory, whether employees take organizational citizenship behavior depends on the principle of reciprocity in social exchange theory. Organizational citizenship behavior is an out-of-role behavior that is beneficial to organizational development. When employees perceive paradoxical leadership to give them care, consider their individualization in the organization, and give them appropriate autonomy as a form of leadership. In return, employees will take more organizational citizenship behaviors to give back to the organization. However, according to attribution theory, when employees attribute the contradictory behavior exhibited by paradoxical leadership to a hypocritical behavior, it will dampen employees’ work enthusiasm, thereby reducing the output of organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, based on the social exchange theory and the attribution theory, this study explores the influence of paradoxical leadership on employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. This research enriches the results of paradoxical leadership, exploring the relationship between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior has important theoretical and practical value.

This paper mainly explores the double-edged sword effect of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior. According to the problem to be studied, the content of this paper is reasonably arranged. The specific content is as follows: The first part is introduction. This part mainly expounds the research background and research questions of this paper; the second part is theory and hypothesis development. This part is mainly to theoretically deduce the logical relationship between the research variables, and put forward research hypotheses and research models; the third part is materials and methods. The work of this part is to collect data and measure variables; the fourth part is data analysis. The work of this part is to test the reliability and validity of the collected data and whether there is a common method bias; the fifth part is results. Mainly through the use of statistical analysis software to carry out empirical analysis on the collected data; the sixth part is conclusion, the main work of this part is to summarize the research results, and put forward the theoretical and practical implication; the seventh part is limitations and future research directions, the main work of this part is to point out this research gaps and look forward to future research.

Theory and Hypothesis Development

The Mediating Role of Perceived Insider Status

The principle of reciprocity in social exchange theory explains the basis for the organization to divide employees into “insiders” or “outsiders”.¹⁵ When employees perceive that they have a higher social exchange relationship with the leader in the organization, they will get more organizational resources from the leader, think of yourself as a member of the organization and consider yourself to be an “inside person” in the organization, so as to take more out-of-role behaviors that are conducive to the development of the organization, such as organizational citizenship behavior;¹⁶ However, when employees perceive that they have a low social exchange relationship with the leaders in the organization, they will feel disrespected, and think that they are “outsiders”, thereby discouraging employees’ enthusiasm for work, reduce or even stop taking out-of-role behaviors that are conducive to the development of the organization. This kind of exchange relationship has given birth to employees’ perceptions of “insiders” and “outsiders”.

The level of perceived insider status reflects the level of organizational identity in the organization.¹⁵ As the agent of the organization, the leader’s words and deeds will definitely affect the employees’ perceived insider status. Literature studies have found that leadership styles have a significant impact on perceived insider status. Dual leadership,¹⁷ inclusive leadership,¹⁸ humble leadership, authentic leadership,¹⁹ and benevolent leadership,²⁰ have all played a role in promoting perceived insider status.

Paradoxical leadership takes others as the center and maintains close relationships with employees, gives employees sufficient respect, thereby enhancing employees’ sense of organizational identity and emotional identity,³ which improves perceived insider status; Paradoxical leadership treat their subordinates equally, and give full consideration to the individual characteristics of employees in the organization, so that employees feel the respect and care given to himself by the leader, create a good working atmosphere, and stimulate employees’ following behavior,²¹ perceived insider status has been further strengthened; Paradoxical leadership gives employees the right to work independently, allows them to maintain work flexibility, which enhances employees’ sense of “ownership”, eliminates employees’ tension at work, and creates relative sense the working environment,²² which increases perceived insider status. Otherwise, previous studies have found that paradoxical leadership can create a harmonious and relaxed team atmosphere, which plays an important role in establishing close relationships among team members and stimulates employees’ psychological identity.³ It can be found that the paradoxical leadership gives employees psychological satisfaction, creates a harmonious working atmosphere, establishes good interpersonal relationships, improves employees’ sense of organizational identity, and thereby enhances perceived insider status.

Perceived insider status is the core performance of the relationship between employees and the organization, reflecting the employee’s cognition and motivational tendency.²³ Employees with higher perceived insider status have a higher sense of organizational identity and regard themselves as a part of the organization, and maintain a deep emotional connection with the organization. The emotional needs of employees are also met in such the organization,²⁴ the employees’ psychological sense of belonging to the organization has also been strengthened. Therefore, employees will be more proactive in their future work and study, exert their own role as insiders of the organization, and adopt more out-of-role behaviors that are conducive to organizational development,²⁵ such as organizational citizenship behavior;^25,26 but employees with low perceived insider status will think that they are outsiders of the organization and are unwilling to waste their time and energy to implement organizational citizenship behavior.¹⁶ According to the social exchange theory, employees with high perceived insider status ‎tend to have a stronger sense of organizational identity than employees with low ‎perceived insider status, and employees with high perceived insider status have a strong ‎“‎ownership”, regard the realization of organizational goals as the primary task, go beyond the realization of personal goals, and be more willing to assume and fulfill the responsibilities and obligations in the organization, and will continue to spontaneously contribute to the organization, conduct more organizational citizenship behaviors.

Based on the above analysis, this article proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Perceived insider status plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

The Mediating Role of Psychological Entitlement

Paradoxical leadership is usually regarded by researchers as a positive leadership style, which can often bring positive effects to employees. However, studies have found that positive leadership styles can bring positive effects to employees, they may also bring negative effects to employees.²⁷ Studies have shown that transformational leadership,²⁸ empowered leadership²⁹ and benevolent leadership³⁰ have a negative impact on employees’ attitudes and behaviors.

According to attribution theory,³¹ employees form their own explanations of why their leaders treat them in a certain way, and these explanations will affect their subsequent attitudes and behaviors.⁵ Psychological entitlement in the workplace is an unhealthy mental state, employees with psychological entitlement tend to develop selfishness,³² cause tension with colleagues,³³ reduce proactive behavior,³⁴ reduce organizational citizenship behavior,⁵ and increase counterproductive behavior.³⁵ Based on attribution theory, paradoxical leadership establishes an intimate relationship with employees, gives employees sufficient respect, and maintains friendly relationships with employees, making employees think that they are favored by their leaders and that they are qualified to get more resources, which intensifies the employee’s psychological entitlement; Paradoxical leadership fully considers employees’ individual characteristics in the organization when assigning work tasks, so that employees believe that they have special strengths and can be favored by the organization, employees’ sense of self-worth is amplified and strengthened their sense of psychological entitlement; Paradoxical leadership gives employees the right to work independently, allows them to maintain work flexibility, which easily leads to the expansion of employees’ self-ability, which leads to higher psychological entitlement. It can be seen from this that the special care given to employees by the paradoxical leadership and the close relationship established with employees make employees attribute their own contributions and specialties, believe that this is what they deserve, and aggravate employees’ psychological entitlement.

Psychological entitlement describes how individuals perceive the relationship between their “giving” and “getting”.³³ Employees with high psychological entitlement are usually more likely to feel that there is unfairness in the organization, and employees’ perceptions of unfairness will reduce their motivation to take positive behaviors. Based on attribution theory, employees with high psychological entitlement are more likely to attribute from the aspect of self-service,^36,37 and it is easier to attribute success to themselves and failure to external environmental factors, thinking that they should be given preferential treatment by the organization and get more organizational resources, even if their performance level and contribution are not so high in reality.³⁸ However, if the actual resources obtained by employees with high psychological entitlement deviate from the expected resources, they will think that they are not valued by the organization, which will lead to negative emotions and increase the perception of psychological unfairness, which will lead to employees increase anti-productive behavior and reduce organizational citizenship behavior.³⁷ At the same time, some studies believe that employees with higher psychological entitlement usually have self-centered thinking and like to avoid responsibilities. They have never considered other tasks than work duties in their roles and responsibilities, making it more difficult to implement organizational citizenship behavior for organization creating benefits.^5,39

Based on the above analysis, this research proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2: Psychological entitlement plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

The Moderating Role of Collectivism Between Paradoxical Leadership and Perceived Insider Status

Collectivism is a concentrated reflection of employees with collective concepts as the core. Employees with collectivistic tendencies are more willing to establish close relationships with other people in the organization, and always implement organization interests above personal interests.⁴⁰ Employees working in a collectivistic atmosphere can feel the fairness of the organization, and correspondingly have a higher sense of organizational identity and perceived insider status, are more willing to share their own experience and knowledge, and are more willing to establish intimate relationships with others.⁴¹

The emergence of employee collectivism is a positive feedback for feeling the warmth of the organization.⁴² Employees with high collectivism tend to be more sensitive to the relationship between individuals and organizations, which means that they tend to shape the process of social exchange between employees and leaders.⁴¹ Employees with high collectivism tend to feel the care of the organization, often match the values of the organization, agree with the leadership’s behavior style, are more willing to participate in organizational decision-making activities, and are more willing to contribute to the acquisition of organizational benefits;⁴³ In contrast, employees with low collectivism tend to only care about their own interests and needs, are not sensitive to the care from the organization and leaders, and have unharmonious relationships with colleagues, organizational identity and perceived insider status are relatively low.⁴⁴ Social exchange theory has been well applied in practice. It can be used to explain that when employees face a positive leadership style in an organization, employees voluntarily make their own contributions to the organization to improve organizational performance. According to social exchange theory, paradoxical leadership usually treat their subordinates in a respectful and appropriate manner, and listen to their subordinates’ suggestions. Employees with high collectivism tend to be more aware of the autonomy that paradoxical leaders give themselves to work. In order to reward the respect, support and care given to them by paradoxical leadership, employees with high collectivism tend to be more proactive in taking on their roles and obligations as “insiders” in the organization. Employees with high collectivism tend to have a stronger sense of organizational honor and organizational identity.⁴⁵ They will participate more actively in organizational activities, maintain relationships with other employees in the organization,⁴⁶ and strengthens perceived insider status.

Based on the above analysis, this article proposes the following research hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3: Collectivism plays a positive moderating role between paradoxical leadership and perceived insider status.

The Moderating Role of Leadership Member Exchange Differentiation Between Paradoxical Leadership and Psychological Entitlement

As a kind of behavioral perception that employees feel that the quality of the exchange of leaders is high or low, the difference will inevitably have an impact on the attitude and behavior of the employees.⁴⁷ Leader-member exchange differentiation can easily cause interpersonal conflicts between employees in the organization.^48,49 One of the main characteristics of psychological entitlement is selfishness, and it is easy to conflict with others in the organization.^33,36

Studies have found that in the context of high-level leadership member exchange differentiation, employees with higher quality leadership member exchange relationships think that they deserve more attention from the leader, deserve more organizational resources, and require more rewards, and his perception of psychological entitlement is more obvious; while employees with lower quality leaders leadership member exchange relationships think that they are not “insiders”, which intensifies the perception of psychological unfairness, which enhances the psychological entitlement of employees.⁵⁰ Leader member exchange mainly occurs between leaders and employees, and the perception of differentiation also mainly comes from the difference in the quality of exchanges between leaders and employees. Leadership style is inextricably linked to the perception of employee differentiation. Leader member exchange differentiation also affects the role of leadership styles on employees’ work attitudes and behaviors.⁵¹ Paradoxical leadership has its own way of thinking about problems as a whole, as well as its respect for employees and the intimacy established with employees will affect employees’ psychological entitlement.¹ Employees with psychological entitlement believe that they should have a higher status and get more resources than other employees in the organization.³³ In the high-level context of leader-member exchange differentiation, paradoxical leadership provides more resources to employees with whom they have established high-quality relationships. Employees who have obtained more resources believe that this is what they deserve. The recognition of the special status further intensifies the psychological entitlement of employees, and employees who have established low-quality relationships with them will think that they do not belong to the “insider” in the organization, aggravating the sense of injustice in their hearts, and the level of psychological entitlement will also increase.⁵⁰ In the low-level context of leader-member exchange differentiation, paradoxical leadership will give equal treatment to employees in the organization, creating an atmosphere of organizational fairness for employees, and employees will think that they have no right to be treated specially. The harmonious interpersonal relationship established by the employees further reduces the employees’ psychological entitlement thoughts.⁵²

Based on the above analysis, this article proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 4: Leader-member exchange differentiation plays a positive moderating role between paradoxical leadership and psychological entitlement.

Mediating Moderation

Paradoxical leadership promotes organizational citizenship behavior through perceived insider status. This is a positive path for paradoxical leadership to organizational citizenship behavior through mediation; paradoxical leadership inhibits organizational citizenship behavior through psychological entitlement. This is a negative path for paradoxical leadership to organizational citizenship behavior through mediation. However, the effects of both positive and negative paths are affected by contextual variables. Collectivism promotes organizational citizenship behavior by moderating the influence of paradoxical leadership on perceived insider status, and leader-member exchange differentiation inhibits organizational citizenship behavior by moderating the influence of paradoxical leadership on psychological entitlement.

Based on the above analysis, this article proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 5: Collectivism moderates the mediating role of perceived insider status between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior;

Hypothesis 6: Leader-member exchange differentiation moderates the mediating role of psychological entitlement between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

The theoretical model of this research is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Research model.

Materials and Methods

Sample and Data Collection

According to the research purpose, this study selects enterprises in the manufacturing, financial and high-tech industries in Shandong Province as the research objects, and collects data on the leaders and employees of the human resources departments and marketing departments in the enterprises. In this study, a total of 612 employees from 96 teams in 12 companies were collected by questionnaires. After excluding the unqualified questionnaires, a total of 77 valid leadership questionnaires and 473 valid employee questionnaires were obtained. Before carrying out the survey, we first introduced our research project in detail to the human resource manager as well as the general manager and received generous support. Then, we asked the human resource manager to randomly select our potential participants with a random number generator that matches with the employees’ work ID. Later, we contacted the selected employees to solicit their participation and explained our research purpose through phone calls or e-mails. To alleviate the threat of common method bias, we adopted a two-wave design with a four-week lag. In each wave, we visited the company and conducted the survey. In the first stage (Time 1), we invited 612 employees to report paradoxical leadership, perceived insider status, psychological entitlement, collectivism, leader-member exchange differentiation and demographic variables and received valid 473 employees; Four weeks later (Time 2), we invited 96 leaders, and to report organizational citizenship behavior and demographic variables and received valid 77 responses.

Variable Measurement

Following the back-translation procedure, all of the English questionnaire items were translated into Chinese.

Paradoxical leadership: We used the 22-item scale developed Zhang et al¹ to assess paradoxical leadership. Sample items include“My leader will keep a distance from his subordinates at work, but he will be very concerned about his subordinates in life”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Organizational citizenship behavior: We used the 11-item scale developed Farh et al⁵³ to assess organizational citizenship behavior. Sample items include“When work needs, employees will choose to work overtime voluntarily”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Perceived insider status: Perceived insider status was assessed using Stamper and Masterson’s²⁵ 6-item scale. Sample items include“I deeply feel that I am part of the organization”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Psychological entitlement: Psychological entitlement was assessed using Yam et al’s⁵⁴ 4-item scale. Sample items include“I am eligible for more resources”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Collectivism: We used the 5-item scale developed Triandis et al⁵⁵ to collectivism. Sample items include“If one of my colleagues is honored, I will feel very proud”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Leader-member exchange: We used the 7-item scale developed Scandura et al³⁵ to leader-member exchange. Sample items include“My leader is very clear about my satisfaction with my work”. Respondents completed the measures using a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree).

Control variables: we included age, gender, education and industry as control variables.

Data Analysis

Confirmatory Factor Analyses

Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the discriminant validity of the six constructs, namely paradoxical leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, perceived insider status, psychological entitlement, collectivism, leader-member exchange differentiation. The results (see Table 1) showed that the six-factor model provided a better fit to the data (χ²/df=2.409, CFI=0.922, TLI=0.91, RMSEA=0.05, SRMR=0.038), indicating that the common method bias was not a serious threat in this study.

Table 1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 presents the correlations and reliabilities. Paradoxical leadership was positively associated with organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.211, p<0.01), perceived insider status (r=0.175, p<0.01) and psychological entitlement (r=0.145, p<0.01); there is a significant positive correlation between perceived insider status and organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.326), p<0.01); there is a significant negative correlation between psychological entitlement and organizational citizenship behavior (r=−0.094, p<0.01). The results of the correlation analysis preliminarily indicate that the relationship between the variables is as stated in the hypothesis, which also provides a basis for further data analysis.

Table 2 Correlations and Reliabilities of Variables

Results

A Test of the Mediating Role of Perceived Insider Status

As shown in Table 3, after the control variables are constrained, paradoxical leadership has a significant impact on perceived insider status (r=0.187, p<0.01). Perceived insider status has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.351, p<0.01). Paradoxical leadership has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior through perceived insider status (r=0.058, p<0.01). Therefore, perceived insider status plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Hypothesis 1 is verified.

Table 3 The Mediating Role of Perceived Insider Status

A Test of the Mediating Role of Psychological Entitlement

As shown in Table 4, after the control variables are constrained, paradoxical leadership has a significant impact on psychological entitlement (r=0.124, p<0.01). Psychological entitlement has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior (r=−0.152, p<0.01). Paradoxical leadership has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behavior through psychological entitlement (r=−0.024, p<0.01). Therefore, psychological entitlement plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Hypothesis 2 is verified.

Table 4 The Mediating Role of Psychological Entitlement

The Moderating Role of Collectivism Between Paradoxical Leadership and Perceived Insider Status

As shown in Table 5, after the control variables are constrained, the interaction between paradoxical leadership and collectivism can significantly affect perceived insider status (r=0.115, p<0.05). In order to further illustrate the moderating role of collectivism between paradoxical leadership and perceived insider status, the moderating role of collectivism is drawn by adding or subtracting one standard deviation to show collectivism more clearly. As shown in Figure 2, when collectivism is low, the role of paradoxical leadership impacts on perceived insider status is also lower; when collectivism is high, the role of paradoxical leadership impacts on perceived insider status is also higher. Therefore, collectivism plays a moderating role between paradoxical leadership and perceived insider status. Hypothesis 3 has been verified.

Table 5 The Moderating Role of Collectivism Between Paradoxical Leadership and Perceived Insider Status

Figure 2 The moderating role of collectivism between paradoxical leadership and perceived insider status.

The Moderating Role of Leader-Member Exchange Differentiation Between Paradoxical Leadership and Psychological Entitlement

As shown in Table 6, after the control variables are constrained, the interaction between paradoxical leadership and leader-member exchange differentiation can significantly affect psychological entitlement (r=0. 143, p<0.05). In order to further illustrate the moderating role of leader-member exchange differentiation between paradoxical leadership and psychological entitlement, the moderating role of leader-member exchange differentiation is drawn by adding or subtracting one standard deviation to show leader-member exchange differentiation more clearly. As shown in Figure 3, when leader-member exchange differentiation is low, the role of paradoxical leadership impacts on psychological entitlement is also lower; when leader-member exchange differentiation is high, the role of paradoxical leadership impacts on psychological entitlement is also higher. Therefore, leader-member exchange differentiation plays a moderating role between paradoxical leadership and psychological entitlement. Hypothesis 4 has been verified.

Table 6 The Moderating Role of Leadership Member Exchange Differentiation Between Paradoxical Leadership and Psychological Entitlement

Figure 3 The moderating role of leader-member exchange differentiation between paradoxical leadership and psychological entitlement.

Moderated Mediation Test

As shown in Table 7, after the control variables are constrained, the test results found that the interaction between paradoxical leadership and collectivism can significantly affect perceived insider status, and further affect organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.035, p<0.01).

Table 7 Collectivism Moderates the Indirect Effect of Paradoxical Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior via Perceived Insider Status

To sum up, collectivism significantly moderates the influence of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior through perceived insider status, that is, when collectivism is high, the influence is stronger that paradoxical leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior through perceived insider status; when collectivism is low, the influence is weaker that paradoxical leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior through perceived insider status. Therefore, Hypothesis 5 is verified.

As shown in Table 8, after the control variables are constrained, the test results found that the interaction between paradoxical leadership and leader-member exchange differentiation can significantly affect psychological entitlement, and further affect organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.028, p<0.01).

Table 8 Leader-Member Exchange Differentiation Moderates the Indirect Effect of Paradoxical Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior via Psychological Entitlement

To sum up, leader-member exchange differentiation significantly moderates the influence of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior through psychological entitlement, that is, when leader-member exchange differentiation is high, the influence is stronger that paradoxical leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior through psychological entitlement; when leader-member exchange differentiation is low, the influence is weaker that paradoxical leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior through psychological entitlement. Therefore, Hypothesis 6 is verified.

Conclusion

Research Results

This study explores the double-edged sword effect of paradoxical leadership to organizational citizenship behavior, and clearly explains the internal mechanism of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior and the boundary conditions of paradoxical leadership on perceived insider status and psychological entitlement. This research builds a cross-level structural model from the perspective of attribution theory and social exchange theory. The empirical analysis results based on the survey data of 473 employees and 77 leaders show that paradoxical leadership has the double-edged sword effect of paradoxical leadership to organizational citizenship behavior; perceived insider status plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; psychological entitlement plays a mediating role between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; collectivism plays a moderating role between paradoxical leadership and perceived insider status; leader-member exchange differentiation plays a moderating role between paradoxical leadership and psychological entitlement; collectivism moderates the mediating role of perceived insider status between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; leader-member exchange differentiation moderates the mediating role of psychological entitlement between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

Theoretical Implication

First of all, previous studies on paradoxical leadership have mostly focused on single-path research. For example, paradoxical leadership positively influences followers’ job satisfaction and work engagement.⁵⁶ This study integrates the perspective of perceived insider status and psychological entitlement to explore the dual mediating paths of paradoxical leadership’s impact on organizational citizenship behavior. The internal mechanism of paradoxical leadership affecting organizational citizenship behavior is further deepened. The conclusion of this study supports the effect proposed by Zhang et al¹ that paradoxical leadership may have a double-edged sword effect on employee behavior. It further shows the double-edged sword effect of paradoxical leadership with flexibility and openness on organizational citizenship behavior in the Chinese context. This study enriches and expands the research results of paradoxical leadership, and promotes the exploration and development of paradoxical leadership theory in China’s local context.

Secondly, previous studies have mostly studied the mechanism of paradoxical leadership on employee behavior from a single theoretical perspective such as social exchange theory and social identity theory. This study analyzes the mechanism of paradoxical leadership from the perspectives of social exchange theory and attribution theory. The study found that social exchange theory helps to explain the positive impact of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior, and attribution theory helps to explain the negative effect of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior. This research conclusion responds to exploring the mechanism of paradoxical leadership from different perspectives, and deepens the understanding of the process of paradoxical leadership acting on employees’ organizational citizenship behavior.

Finally, this research reveals the moderating effect of the dual paths of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior, and enriches the exploration of the contextual factors about paradoxical leadership. It explores the boundary conditions of paradoxical leadership influencing the multi-path of organizational citizenship behavior from the perspective of leader-member exchange differentiation and collectivism, and reveals the problem of the contextual factors that each path.

Practical Implication

First, managers should use the paradox thinking mode to realize the conflict and compatibility of contradictions in enterprise management, flexibly coordinate the motivation of employees to adopt organizational citizenship behavior, and provide possible solutions for the “paradox problem” of employees’ organizational citizenship behavior.

Secondly, the two mediating variables of perceived insider status and psychological entitlement introduced to clarify the dual paths effect of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior. Remind organizations that when implementing paradoxical leadership, employees with different psychological perceptions should adopt different coping strategies, carry out relevant training courses, create a comfortable working environment, give employees humanistic care, strengthen communication with employees, and build a good organizational cultural atmosphere, and continuously strengthen employees’ perceived insider status, further weaken employees’ psychological entitlement, and encourage employees to adopt more organizational citizenship behaviors, thereby improving organizational performance.

Finally, this article is researched in the context of Chinese culture. Chinese traditional society is a society oriented by relationships and collectives. Therefore, employees’ different cognition of leader-member relationship and collectivism tendencies will affect employees’ psychological cognition and behavior. In actual life and work, there is an obvious difference order pattern in the organization. It exists objectively in the organization and does not depend on the will of someone. The perception of this unfair belief will significantly increase the psychological privileges of employees, dampen their work enthusiasm, and reduce the output of organizational citizenship behavior. In the case of collectivism, employees’ perceived insider status has been strengthened, and employees’ organizational identity and emotional identity have been improved. Employees are more willing to take organizational citizenship behaviors so that the organization can obtain more benefits and maintain the organization competitiveness in a turbulent environment, and ensure the effective operation of the organization. Therefore, organizations should create a collectivistic environment in actual work, weaken the situation of exchange of differences between leaders and members, and then improve the organizational citizenship behavior of employees.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Our study has some limitations that need to be considered in future research. First, the research method adopted in this research is a quantitative empirical analysis based on the data collected in the questionnaire survey, but the data collected in the questionnaire survey cannot exclude the subjective factors of the respondent, which may easily lead to deviations in the research results. Future research can combine experimental method to verify the research hypothesis, make a powerful supplement to the existing research methods, and eliminate interference factors as much as possible to make the research results more accurate.

Second, this research merely selects perceived insider status and psychological entitlement to explore the mediating effect of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior. Future research can select positive paths such as perception of responsibility and psychological security, as well as negative paths such as work pressure and workplace anxiety to explore the relationship between paradoxical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

Third, this article only selects two variables of leader-member exchange differentiation and collectivism as the contextual conditions for studying the impact of paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior. However, there are still many possibilities for the contextual conditions that affect the relationship. Future research can broaden the selection of contextual conditions, such as the selection of individual-level adjustment focus variables, environmental uncertainty and environmental dynamics to explore the impact of these situational variables on paradoxical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior.