Employee followership predispositions: Their perceptions of narcissistic traits in supervisors

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between employee perceptions of narcissistic supervision and employee followership. Further, we investigated the influences of employee proactive personality, self-efficacy, political skill, and team political climate on said relationship. Data were from 383 employees of a large Chinese IT enterprise (female = 37.33%, mean age = 36.85 years, SD = 8.57 years; mean year of experience = 2.34 years, SD = 1.56 years). Multi-level structural equation modelling and bootstrap analyses resultsindicated that follower proactive personality positively moderated the relationship between follower self-efficacy and employee followership. Follower self-efficacy and team political climate influenced employee followership under narcissistic supervision. These results suggest employee work predispositions to likely buffer the influences of narcissistic supervision on employee followership.