The role of leadership and related mediators in the development of psychological ownership in organisations

Abstract

While research on psychological ownership in organisations has focused on the outcome side, and particularly on its positive consequences, much less is known about the conditions under which psychological ownership develops. Although there are first attempts to study this direction, the role of leadership styles and the leader-follower relationship has received little attention. Leaders are important parts of organisations and interact more or less intensively with their followers, and therefore have the potential to exert influence on the followers' attitudes and behaviours. This chapter first outlines the existing and published research on the leaders' role in the development of followers' psychological ownership. Based on this literature review, recent leadership styles, and particularly follower-focused aspects, are examined in greater detail. The focus lies on their function as potential antecedents of psychological ownership. In a second step, the chapter hypothesizes that transformational leadership and high-quality leader-member-exchange (LMX) between leaders and followers contribute to higher levels of psychological ownership. Empirical analysis confirm these relationships in two independent survey studies (N1 = 189, N2 = 119). In order to find explanations for the process of how leadership can foster psychological ownership, further quantitative-exploratory analyses are conducted. The results identify perceived appreciation by customers and emotional exhaustion as mediators of the relationship between transformational leadership and psychological ownership. The empirics also suggest an organisation's focus on employee welfare and a climate for initiative in the organisation to be important mediators in the link between LMX and psychological ownership. Based on the presented findings, the chapter extends existing research and discusses future perspectives for research on leadership and psychological ownership, especially with respect to potential mediators. We conclude the chapter with an outlook and the implications of our findings in a multi-cultural context.