Organization and Strategy Seminar（2018-13）

Topic: Bad bosses and being in the middle: The influence of manager Machiavellianism on supervisor boundary spanning and employee creativity.

Speaker: Giles Hirst,Australian National University

Time: Tuesday, 27 November, 15:00-16:30

Location: Room 110 , Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

This research describes a program of work examining how leaders work in multi-level systems. Supervisors play an important role in fostering employee creativity. Expanding current theorizing, we argue that their effectiveness in doing so jointly depends on their capacity to span intra-organizational boundaries and manage their relationship with their own line manager. This is particularly critical in the case that their line manager has a Machiavellian disposition and is apt to constrain their boundary spanning behavior. To test our hypotheses, we analyze the network behavior of supervisors and its effect on employee creativity depending on the level of Machiavellianism of line managers using multi-level exponential random graph models and hierarchical linear modeling in two organizations. Using these two types of analysis our results show encouraging support for our claim that supervisors’ behavior affects the influence transmission processes in multilevel hierarchical relationships and moderates the effect of manager’s behavior on employee creativity.This paper contributes to our understanding of how supervisors enact constructive behaviors working under managers who may not necessarily imbue such attributes[i].

Introduction:

Giles Hirstis Interim Director and Chair of Leadership at the Research School of Management, Australian National University. He is interested in how leaders foster creativity, innovation and contribute more broadly to society. Giles works with government, multi-nationals e.g. AstraZeneca, Microsoft and refugees to enhance their success finding work. Giles has launched and commercialized several start-up firms. Prior to this Giles was Director of Research Department of Management, Monash University and received his PhD. from the Melbourne Business School under Professor Leon Mann’s supervision.Giles has been appointed to the editorial boards of The British Journal of Management, The Journal of Organizational Behavior and The Journal of Personnel Psychology.He has published in TheJournal of International Business Studies, The Journal of Applied Psychology,The Academy of Management Journal, The Leadership QuarterlyandThe Journal of Organizational Behavior. He has been awarded four Monash University Vice Chancellor awards for excellence in unit evaluation for research methods and personal development units. He has received more than $800,000 of Australian Research Council grants and more than half a million dollars of industry research funding.

//www.cbe.anu.edu.au/about/staff-directory/?profile=Giles-Hirst

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