Follower upward influence tactics and their relationships with job performance ratings: the importance of leader-member exchange (LMX) and leader/follower gender similarity

This doctoral study focuses on upward influence tactics and the social exchange process which takes place between leaders and their followers. The research posits Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) dimensions as a theoretical mechanism for understanding how upward influence tactics work. More specifically, it analyses the roles of LMX dimensions in mediating the relationship between followers’ upward influence tactics and job performance ratings. Furthermore, it seeks to understand the role of gender similarity in moderating the relationship between upward influence tactics and LMX dimensions. It goes on to query upward influence tactics’ direct and non-linear relationships with job performance ratings, the differences between leaders’ and followers’ reporting of the use of follower upward influence tactics and test their relationships with job performance ratings, and the use of these tactics in the Saudi context. The empirical research for the present study took place in public, private, and non-profit organizations in Saudi Arabia. This is a country which has not been the focus of research on influence tactics to date in the literature. Based on a sample of 389 leader-follower pairs, the results show a number of significant relationships. Results revealed that rationality and self-presentation tactics have positive relationships with job performance ratings while exchange of benefits and upward appeal tactics have negative relationships with job performance ratings. Moreover, LMX-loyalty mediates the relationship between upward influence tactics of rationality, ingratiation, upward appeal, coalition, and self-presentation with job performance ratings. LMX-affect mediates the relationship between upward influence tactics of upward appeal and coalition with job performance ratings. Gender similarity moderates the relationship between rationality ingratiation, upward appeal, coalition, and self-presentation tactics and LMX-loyalty. Specifically, the relationship between these tactics and job performance ratings are mediated by LMX-loyalty in case of the leader and the follower having the same gender. Additionally, non-linear relationships have been found between the use of coalition and upward appeal tactics and job performance ratings within Saudi culture. These latter findings suggesting non-linear effects for some upward influence tactics propose new avenues for conducting research in the area of influence tactics within differing cultural contexts. Finally, while rational persuasion and ingratiation were the most-used tactics, self-presentation was moderately used in Saudi culture. Assertiveness, upward appeal, coalition, and exchange of benefits were used far less by comparison in Saudi Arabian culture