A new perspective on team leadership: the role of the leader’s social capital, perceived power, and team commitment in enhancing team-level perceived support, efficacy, and cohesion

The present study adopts a relational approach to leadership and examines a leader’s role in enhancing team members’ attitudes. Previous studies on the leader’s social capital found that a leader’s central position in social networks increased the leader’s prestige and influence in the organization. Extending this research, the current study proposes that the leader’s central position in social networks, especially with peer leaders and superiors, should enable the leader to provide valuable resources for the team, and as a result, lead team members to feel more supported and valued by the organization. In addition to the leader’s centralities in the networks, the present study further suggests that team members judge their leader’s power based on their own information, separate from the actual power that the leader holds. The leader’s power perceived by team members is also proposed to positively affect team members’ perceptions of organizational support provided for their team. Applying the theory of perceived organizational support to the team-level, this dissertation uses the notion of team climate for organizational support to capture the degree to which team members feel supported by the organization as a team. Furthermore, it is proposed that not all leaders are dedicated to their teams and motivated to utilize their social capital for the sake of their teams. Therefore, the present study proposes that the leader’s team commitment will moderate the relationship between the leader’s centrality and team climate for organizational support and the relationship between the leader’s perceived power and team climate for organizational support, respectively. Team climate for organizational support enhanced by the leader’s centrality and perceived power is further hypothesized to positively affect team-level attitudes including team efficacy and cohesion. Data was collected from companies located in South Korea using paper surveys. The final sample consists of 44 executives, 84 leaders, and 469 team members. The study used hierarchical regression to test hypotheses. The results show that the leader’s centralities in both advice and friendship networks with peer leaders were positively related to team climate for organizational support. However, the leader’s centralities in advice and friendship networks with superiors had either marginal or no impact on team climate for organizational support. The leader’s power perceived by team members was also positively and strongly related to team climate for organizational support. Contrary to expectations, however, the leader’s team commitment did not moderate the hypothesized relationships. Team climate for organizational support was positively related to team efficacy and team cohesion as expected. Additional findings, implications for theory and practice, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Mee Sook Ki