Follower psychological need satisfaction as a mediator between leader and follower use of emotions and follower job performance
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-05-2020-0175 |
| Published date | 24 June 2021 |
| Date | 24 June 2021 |
| Pages | 121-136 |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
| Author | Sunu Widianto,Celeste P.M. Wilderom |
Follower psychological need satisfaction
as a mediator between leader and
follower use of emotions and
follower job performance
Sunu Widianto and Celeste P.M. Wilderom
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to test whetherfollower psychological need satisfaction, a key
variable in the self-determination theory (SDT), mediates between both follower and leader use of
emotionsand follower job performance.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors surveyedhealth-care professionals who were employed
by variousorganizations, and at the same time, were enrolled in a bachelorand part-time MSc program at
an Indonesian university(N = 220). Structural equation modeling was used to test the two hypothesized
mediationeffects.
Findings –The results show that to get highfollower job performance, both leaders and followersmust
be proficient in using their own emotions in constructive ways. Both significant associations were
mediated by follower psychological need satisfaction. In addition, follower use of emotions was also
directlyrelated to follower job performance, indicatingpartial mediation.
Originality/value –By examining the emotional intelligence dimension ‘‘use of emotions’’ by both
followers and theirleaders, and by pointing to the importance of the constructiveuse of their emotions at
work, the authors extend the SDT. Two probable affective mechanisms, which precede the job
performanceeffects of satisfying followers’ psychologicalneeds, were identified from the results.
Keywords Psychological need satisfaction, Follower job performance, Use of own emotions,
Emotional intelligence
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Over the past decade, the topic of emotions andemotional intelligence (EI) in organizations
has received increasing attention (Ashkanasy et al.,2017;Ashkanasy and Humphrey,
2011). There is evidence, for instance, that leader EI contributes to a unit’s objective work
performance (Wilderom et al.,2015), and followers’ own emotions can also play a
performative role at work (Ashkanasy et al.,2017). Previous empirical field studies on
emotions at work have focused mostly on leader emotions (Antonakis et al.,2009;
Ashkanasy et al.,2017;Ashkanasy and Humphrey, 2011;Gooty et al.,2010;Van
Knippenberg et al., 2008). A study by Venus et al. (2013) shows that leaders who make
good use of their own emotions can influence their followers’ feelings and behaviors in a
very effective way. In the present study, we assume that both followers’ and a leader’s use
of emotions influence follower job motivation and performance. Damen et al. (2008) already
demonstrated that when there is a match between a leader’s emotional display and
followers’ positive affect, the link between leader emotional display and follower
Sunu Widianto is based at
the Department of
Management and
Business, Faculty of
Economics and Business,
Padjadjaran University,
Bandung, Indonesia.
Celeste P.M. Wilderom is
based at the Department of
Change Management and
Organizational Behavior,
University of Twente,
Enschede, The
Netherlands.
Received 3 May 2020
Revised 28 November 2020
29 March 2021
Accepted 10 April 2021
This research is funded by
Indonesian Ministry of
Education, Culture, Research &
Technology.
DOI 10.1108/JABS-05-2020-0175 VOL. 16 NO. 1 2022, pp. 121-136, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 121
performance becomes moderated. Other literature on how follower perceptions of their
leader’s emotions evoke follower reactions and performance is still sparse (Gooty et al.,
2010;Montano et al.,2017).
While examining how leader and follower emotions underpin follower job motivation and
performance, we focus in this study on how followers’ and leaders’ use of emotions relates
to follower satisfaction with the three well-known basic follower needs, as described in the
self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000), and through that, to follower job
performance. According to the self-determination theory, there are three innate or intrinsic
human needs:
1. need for autonomy;
2. need for competence; and
3. need for relatedness.
Vandercammen et al. (2014a) described these needs as follows. The need for autonomy
pertains to people’s need to satisfy their own interests, i.e. to choose freely and initiate their
own behavior; this type of need is met when followers are free to choose how to perform a
task. The need for competence focuses on how people feel regarding being capable and
effective; performing a challenging task can lead to this need being met. Finally, the
relatedness need refers to establishing mutual respect, feeling connected to and accepted
by others. At work, pleasant relationships with both peers and leaders will fulfil this third
type of intrinsic need.
Despite the many studies worldwide showing that satisfying these three basic motivational
needs influences follower job performance (Cerasoli et al.,2016), few have investigated
their antecedent emotional mechanisms. Moreover, the self-determination theory (SDT) has
practically neglected such types of mechanisms. One reason for the lack of SDT studies on
the effects of emotions might be thatemotions are assumed to play a distal role in this frame
(Vandercammen et al., 2014a); Conventionally, emotion or affect are not part of motivation-
generative mechanisms (Vandercammen et al., 2014b). Studies guided by the SDT have
mainly focused on emotion as a consequence of either need satisfaction or motivation, but
not as a moving factor (Vandercammen et al.,2014a). To enrich the SDT theory, the present
study investigated how high follower need satisfaction and job performance are linked to
follower use of own emotions and the leader’s use of emotions as perceived by the follower
(Figure 1).
We demonstrate that both affective types of follower perceptions act as a source of
information for the follower with which he or she underpins his or her motivation to perform
well in his/her job. Moreover, we show that the SDT, which originated in the west, can also
help in understanding the Asian work context better. This is because we performed our
research in Asian health care, one of the few major growth sectors where older and newer
ways of dealing with the manifold pressures at work, including shifting employee
performance standards, are currently playing out (Kumar, 2019). While most emotion and
psychological need satisfaction studies have been conducted in western contexts, we
present here an empirical field study carried out in a non-western country. Western values,
like independence and assertiveness, can motivate people to express their emotions,
whereas Asian values, like togetherness and harmonious relationships, can urge people to
hide their emotions (Suharnomo and Hashim, 2019). Despite this cross-cultural difference,
we will show that Asian employees’ perceptions of the use of emotions still plays a
performative role. Furthermore, many EI studies have pointed to the fact that the individual
components of the overall EI construct merit further scrutiny (Huang et al.,2019;Extremera
et al.,2018
). Our study can be seen as a response to this need to understand the EI
subdimensions better. Given the central importance of use of emotion to the EI construct,
we conceptualize this variable as one of the affective antecedents of psychological need
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