Chinese Management Studies

Leadership, work stress and employee behavior

Yan-Hong Yao Ying-Ying Fan Yong-Xing Guo Yuan Li

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Yan-Hong Yao Ying-Ying Fan Yong-Xing Guo Yuan Li , (2014),"Leadership, work stress and employee
behavior", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 8 Iss 1 pp. 109 - 126
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Leadership, work stress

and employee behavior

Work stress and

employee
behavior

Yan-Hong Yao and Ying-Ying Fan

School of Business Administration, Hunan University, Changsha, China
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Yong-Xing Guo

109

Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney,

Australia, and

Yuan Li
School of Business Administration, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to explore the influences of leadership and work stress on employee
behavior, and the moderating effects of transactional and transformational leadership on the
relationship between work stress and employee negative behavior.
Design/methodology/approach Using convenience sampling method, the authors investigated
employees from 20 firms in different places and industries, and 347 valid questionnaires were collected.
SPSS18.0 statistical analysis software was used for reliability and validity analysis, descriptive
statistics, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypothesis.
Findings The empirical results show that there is a positive correlation between work stress and
employee negative behavior. Transformational leadership has negative impacts on work stress and
employee negative behavior, whereas transactional leadership has positive influences. Moreover,
transactional leadership strengthens the influence of work stress on employee negative behavior,
whereas transformational leadership has no moderating effect.
Practical implications First, enterprises should take employees stress tolerance into account in
selection and recruitment, and enhance stress management. Second, by demonstrating inspirational
vision and personal charisma, open leadership style, rather than short-term transactional behavior, will
motivate subordinates more effectively. Finally, distribution system should be improved to achieve
principle and procedural justice.
Originality/value The paper extends the research on employee behavior by investigating the
impacts of leadership and work stress. According to Chinese social, economic and cultural
characteristics, this research examines the influence of contemporary Chinese mindset and pluralistic
values on employee behavior. Open leadership is proposed as a new leadership style, which contributes
to improving leadership behavior and preventing negative behavior in workplace.
Keywords China, Transformational leadership, Work stress, Transactional leadership, Employee
negative behavior, Open leadership
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
With the rapid development of economy in China, speed, efficiency and effectiveness
have become primarily important for organizations. Chinese enterprises are
experiencing deep changes in structure, technology, personnel, etc. to deal with fierce
market competition. Multiple reasons such as tight job market partially caused by the
second baby boom, over-relying on work income and lack of a comprehensive social

Chinese Management Studies

Vol. 8 No. 1, 2014
pp. 109-126
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-614X
DOI 10.1108/CMS-04-2014-0089

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110

security system have led to employees heavy work stress (Zhang, 2002). Research
suggested that increasing work stress triggers employee negative behavior. Practically,
employees interpersonal conflict, absenteeism, turnover and extreme behavior like
retaliation have become increasingly widespread in the workplace (Shi et al., 2009),
which harmed the organizations effectiveness and development. Cases like continual
suicides of employees have attracted both public and academic attention. Is there a
causal relationship between employees stress and extreme behavior? Is stress
associated with employee behavior? What is the impact of leadership on employees
work stress and related behaviors? We try to find answers by conducting this research.
A considerable amount of literature has been published on leadership and employees
work stress in the domain of organizational behavior and human resources management. In
recent years, with the accelerating pace of work and life in China, how leadership and work
stress influence employee behavior has caught scholars and managers attention.
Previously, researchers primarily focused on the influence of stress on employees
performance, especially positive performance, whereas the negative impacts were often
ignored. Some scholars noted that the relationship between work stress and employee
negative behavior may exist (Zhang and Chen, 2008a), but these studies were just confined
to theoretical development and conceptual models establishment. Also, research on
employee behavior emphasized individual differences and internal psychological effects
(Zhang and Chen, 2008a), while less attention was paid to the organizational context.
Although the relationship between leadership and employee behavior has been studied
continually (Tims et al., 2011; Pieterse et al., 2010), leaderships impact on stress has not been
explored, and its effect on relationship between work stress and employee behavior is still in
early stage. Again, there is a dearth of empirical research in Chinese context. Although the
past 30 years have witnessed extremely high economic increase in China, unbalance
between wealth and happiness has become increasingly salient. Its in such a social context
that we discuss the relationship between employees stress, behavior and leaderships role,
and try to find ways of reducing employee stress and negative behavior through improving
leadership.
From an organizational perspective, this research analyzes characteristics of
employee behavior under stress, transactional leadership and transformational
leadership in Chinese cultural and social context. Also, we explore influences of those
two different leaderships on work stress, employee behavior and their relationship.
Again, the research analyzes the influences of current pluralistic values on employee
behavior and leadership effectiveness. Based on them, we propose open leadership as a
new leadership style, which includes positive motivation, humanistic concern, moral
behavior and reward justice in Chinese context. Research findings provide theoretical
support for enhancing leadership effectiveness, reducing employee negative behavior
and improving organizational performance.
2. Theories and hypotheses
2.1 Work stress
In 1936, the Canadian physiologist Hans Selye first used the term of stress and
systematically described the concept of stress in the book Syndromes Caused by Role of a
Variety of Injuries. He proposed stress as a biological response when humans, animals or
organisms are affected by environmental stimulation. Stress can be caused by many
different demands on the organism, and it is non-specific (Sclye, 1956). Non-specific means

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that although environmental stimuli or needs may vary, the bodys biological response is
relatively constant. Subsequently, scholars of medicine, psychology, sociology and other
disciplines began to pay attention to the stress problem, and defined the concept from their
own perspective respectively. Some scholars saw the work stress as a stimulus or response
variable, whereas others saw it as an environmental variable or product of interaction
between the individual and the environment. These different definitions showed that work
stress is a multidimensional concept. Among these various definitions, the one suggested by
Lazarus transactional model is generally accepted and commonly used. It asserted that
stress resides neither in the person nor the environment, but rather in the interaction between
the two (Lazarus and Launier, 1978; Yu and Li, 2006).
2.2 Employee negative behavior
One of the very interesting categories of behaviors in workplaces is negative deviant
behaviors (Appelbaum et al., 2007). Employee negative deviant behavior is spontaneous
behavior of organizational members that violates the standard, policy or regulations of
the organization and poses threats to the well-being of the whole organization or its
members (Robinson and Greenberg, 1998). Different terminologies were used to describe
deviant behavior, such as organizational device (Moberg, 1997), organizational
aggression (OLeary-Kelly et al., 1996), organizational retaliation behavior (Skarlicki
et al., 1999) and counter-productive work behavior (Fox et al., 1999). These deviant
behaviors are all negative to organizations, so researchers call them negative behavior
straightforward (Golparvar et al., 2012).
Using the combination method of deduction and induction, Bennett and Robinson (2000)
categorized employees deviant behavior in workplace into four approaches such as:
(1) production-related behavior (withdrawal, arriving late to work, withholding
effort at work, etc.);
(2) political behavior (rumor spreading, discrimination, corporate sabotage, etc.);
(3) offensive behavior (sexual harassment, verbal attacks, bodily injury, etc.); and
(4) property-related behavior (unethical decision making, intentionally slowing
down the work cycle, vandalism, etc.).
Then, production-related and property-related behavior were combined into
organizational-oriented behavior, whereas political and offensive behavior were
combined into interpersonal-oriented behavior (Bennett and Robinson, 2000), which was
commonly recognized (Diefendorff and Mehta, 2007; Zoghbi-Manrique and
Verano-Tacoronte, 2007; Berry et al., 2007). The empirical study in China, however,
proposed three dimensions (Yao and Li, 2011):
(1) work-laziness behavior (including work alienation, slacking and false claim);
(2) interpersonal-malicious behavior (including interpersonal withdrawal and
political combat); and
(3) obstructive-destructive behavior (including conflict attack, confrontation and
obstruction and hostile sabotage).
2.3 Work stress and employee behavior
Work stress is the result of interaction between individual and environment. When there
are contextual events or factors which may lead to stress, people will feel stressful and

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anxious. Then, if this kind of stress is not dealt with properly, there will be
corresponding stress response or consequences. These strains may demonstrate as
negative emotions, physiological fatigue, insomnia or some common symptoms in
behavior such as poor performance in communication, interpersonal alienation or
aggressiveness in communication. In addition, stress behavioral responses also include
the decline of work effort such as being late, absent or quit (Shi et al., 2009).
Although the relevant empirical research on the relationship between work stress
and employee behavior is rare, the relationship is supported by them. Although stress to
a certain extent can be motivative and promote work efficiency, most theories and
models suggested that work stress has negative effect and leads to employee negative
behavior (Lambert et al., 2007; Golparvar et al., 2012). OBriens (2008) stressor-strain
model asserted that deviant behaviors are affected by organizational stressors.
Stress non-equilibrium compensation approach (Golparvar and Hosseinzadeh, 2011)
proposed that stress induces non-equilibrium state in the human system, and then
motivates people to strive to return the previous equilibrium. If they are simultaneously
experiencing negative emotions, they will engage in deviant behaviors. Some empirical
studies revealed that work stress resulted from work overload, role ambiguity and work
conflict leading to deviant behaviors (Sackett and DeVore, 2001; Boyd et al., 2009).
Dalals (2005) meta-analytic review found that deviant behaviors are significantly
related to work stress. We therefore propose the following hypotheses:
H1. Employees work stress is positively related to their negative behavior.
H1a. Employees work stress is positively related to their work-laziness behavior.
H1b. Employees work stress is positively related to their interpersonal-malicious
behavior.
H1c. Employees work stress is positively related to their obstructive-destructive
behavior.
2.4 The role of leadership
2.4.1 The characteristic of leadership. Since Downton (1973) first proposed
transformational leadership, transactional leadership and laissez-faire leadership,
leadership theory was quickly developed and widely applied (Burns, 1978; Pillai et al.,
1999; Judge and Piccolo, 2004). Bass transactional and transformational leadership is
the most widely recognized theory (Bass, 1996).
Transactional leadership is based on individual self-interest philosophy. Managers and
employees are considered to be individuals who are rational in pursuit of individual
interests. It is just a pure trading relationship between them (Bass, 1996; Sergiovanni, 1990).
Transactional leadership, which is result-oriented, is only concerned about the short-term
goals of the organization. Transactional leaders regard employees as economic men who
have low quality and demand, work hard to obtain remuneration and care about the
clarification of tasks and roles (Burns, 1978; Zhao, 2003). Transactional leadership
emphasizes traditional instrumental exchange, which means providing employee salary
and position according to their contribution and performance. Transactional leadership is
divided into contingent reward, active management-by-exception and passive
management-by-exception (Bass, 1985; Bass and Avolio, 1995).

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Transformational leadership, which is process-oriented, improves employees

development, commitment through constructing vision, trust, expectation and
suggestion (Bass, 1996). Transformational leaders regard employees as social men
who have loyalty, independence, self-confidence and potential desire to change and
realize themselves. Bass transformational leadership includes charisma or idealized
influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized
consideration (Bass, 1996). However, leadership as a process of social influence has
different concepts and composition in different national culture (Hofstede, 1993, 2001).
Some studies showed that Chinese transformational leadership includes a unique
component moral (Ling et al., 2000; Li and Shi, 2005).
2.4.2 The influence of leadership on work stress and employee negative behavior.
Different leadership styles have different influences on employee behavior. For instance,
Hater and Bass (1988) found that transformational leadership has a stronger
relationship with subordinate effectiveness and satisfaction than transactional
leadership. In addition, when psychological empowerment is high, transformational
leadership is positively related to innovative behavior, whereas transactional leadership
has a negative relationship with innovative behavior (Pieterse et al., 2010).
Some studies showed that employees perception of stress is linked to leadership style
(Gill et al., 2006). Particularly, subordinates who give higher score on supervisor
consideration have lower stress (Oaklander and Fleishman, 1964). Transactional leadership
is characterized by low consideration, which encourages employees with promise, praise
and rewards, and criticizes them through denial, condemned, threat or admonished.
Transactional leaders are only concerned about whether the employees have completed the
deal (Bass, 1985; Chen and Shi, 2007). To accomplish the tasks and obtain the rewards,
employees pay more attention to individual performance and therefore feel stressful. Studies
illuminated that management primarily relying on position power will lead to discontent
among employees. Further, disrespect to employees and inappropriate criticism will cause
negative behavior (Gao et al., 2008). Transactional leadership is hardly helpful for employee
active behavior (Luo and Chen, 2011). Bruursemas paper indicated that leadership style is
related to employee behavior through emotions. Also, when organizational procedures are
not fair and transactional leadership is salient, negative emotions and counterproductive
work behavior are more likely to happen (Bruursema, 2004).
Transformational leaders are characterized by high consideration and they are keen
on enhancing subordinates intrinsic motivation and raise their self-realization desire, so
that employees can surpass their original expectation of work and do not focus on the
exchange of benefits (Bass, 1996; Chen and Shi, 2007). In the transformational leadership
model, employees can choose ethical standards and behavior patterns freely. Behavior
motivation is no longer mandatory but results from internal trust, which mitigates
stress. Many studies proved that transformational leadership has a strong predictive
power on organizational citizenship behavior of employees (Zhang and Qiao, 2006; Li
et al., 2006), employees trust (Podsakoff et al., 1990) and work engagement (Tims et al.,
2011). Transformational leadership can buffer work stress directly (Gill et al., 2006;
Khalid et al., 2012) and restrain employee negative behavior (Bruursema, 2004).
Based on the above analysis, we hypothesize that:
H2a. Transactional leadership positively affects work stress.
H2b. Transactional leadership positively affects employee negative behavior.

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H3a. Transformational leadership negatively affects work stress.

H3b. Transformational leadership negatively affects employee negative behavior.
2.4.3 The moderating effect of leadership. Leadership was supported as a moderator in
many studies. For example, transactional leadership is the moderator between
individuals delay of gratification and their vocational delay of gratification. Under
high-level transactional leadership, employees of both high- and low-level delay of
gratification report high vocational delay of gratification (Liu and Huang, 2013).
Scholars proposed that the consideration dimension of transformational leadership
moderates the relationship between employees distributive justice perception and
organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, when leaders are more concerned
about the subordinates; subordinates who perceive distributive justice are more likely to
demonstrate organizational citizenship behavior such as helping others, working hard
and organizational commitment (Liang et al., 2007).
When employees face different leadership styles, their stressfulness and work
behavior may be different (Hater and Bass, 1988; Gill et al., 2006). Thus, leadership
moderates the relationship between employee work stress and negative behavior.
Transactional leadership focuses on achieving individual performance to get the
rewards (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). Under the impact of transactional leadership and the
existing work stress, employees may demonstrate negative behavior to others and
organization to gain resource advantage or get the rewards (Bruursema, 2004).
Therefore, transactional leadership strengthens the relationship between stress and
negative behavior. Syreks (2013) revealed that transformational leadership negatively
moderates the relationships between time pressure and both employees exhaustion and
worklife balance. Again, Khalid et al. (2012) proposed that supportive leadership
negatively moderates the influence of work stress on job performance. Specifically,
transformational leadership emphasizes humanistic concern that improves employees
working enthusiasm and intrinsic motivation, which will prevent employee negative
behavior caused by work stress.
Therefore, this paper proposes the following hypotheses:
H4. Transactional leadership strengthens the influence of work stress on employee
negative behavior.
H5. Transformational leadership weakens the influence of work stress on employee
negative behavior.
In summary, the theoretical model of this study is shown in Figure 1. Work stress is
positively related to employee negative behavior. Leadership not only affects stress and

Figure 1.
Theoretical model

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negative behavior, but also moderates the relationship between employees work stress
and negative behavior.
3. Method
3.1 Samples and data collecting
In this study, the respondents were from Changsha, Yueyang, Chengzhou, Guangzhou
and Shenzhen in mainland China. Samples included employees of different position
levels in enterprises. All investigations were convened by human resource departments,
and completed in the relatively concentrated time. Before respondents answered
questions, they were told that the survey results would be confidential and only used for
academic research purposes. Questionnaires were collected on the spot.
A total of 420 questionnaires were circulated in 20 firms and 365 were collected. After
picking out incomplete and invalid surveys, there were 347 qualified questionnaires.
Among the respondents, 162 were male (46.7 per cent) and 185 female (53.3 per cent).
These employees were selected from industries like manufacturing, construction,
finance and insurance, transportation and wholesale and retail industries. To ensure the
authenticity of data, respondents were required to provide information of their direct
superiors, and therefore, the data did not include information of top managers. Middle
managers accounted for 25.0 per cent, junior managers for 37.8 per cent and ordinary
employees for 37.2 per cent. Employees who work over three years accounted for 41.0
per cent.
3.2 Measurement
3.2.1 Work stress. There are several validated work stress scales, e.g. job stress scale
(Golparvar and Vaseghi, 2011), work stress scale (Cooper and Marshall, 1978), Maslach
burnout inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1984) and so on. However, these studies were
conducted in developed countries, and they have not been confirmed in countries with
different economic patterns, geographical features and culture (Liu et al., 2005). Based on
relevant literature (Kjeerheim et al., 1997; Lazarus and Launier, 1978; Quick et al., 1997),
Liu and colleagues (2005) developed the Chinese work stress self-report scale by using
interviews, questionnaire surveys and statistical analysis. The scale has been widely
used in China. The internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) of the scale was 0.91. This
measure includes 25 items which dimensionalized as task requirements, work
environment, position competition and social factors. Sample items are I shoulder
heavy responsibilities in work which gives me stress (task requirements), Work
environment is poor and disgusting which gives me stress (work environment),
Promotion competition is fierce and difficult which gives me stress (position
competition) and My social interaction gives me stress (social factors). All items range
from 1 (very small) to 5 (very big).
3.2.2 Negative behavior. Negative deviant behavior scale developed by Robinson and
Bennett (1995) is most widely used, which includes production-related behavior,
political behavior, offensive behavior and property-related behavior. However, Chinese
have their unique cultural psychological characteristics (Hofstede, 1993, 2001). For
example, Chinese employees are more tolerant and emphasize harmony. They prefer
hidden ways to express grievance rather than direct contending with others (Liu and Li,
2009). Offensive and property-related behaviors rarely happen in China (Yao and Li,
2011). Therefore, we used local negative behavior scale which has good reliability and

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validity (Yao and Li, 2011) in Chinese context. The Cronbachs alpha coefficient was
0.92. It includes 26 items of three dimensions such as work laziness behavior,
interpersonal malicious behavior and obstructive destructive behavior. Sample items
include When I have much work stress, I will arrive late or leave early to work (work
laziness behavior), When I have much work stress, I can not help but lose my temper
with my colleagues (interpersonal malicious behavior) and When I can not release
work stress, I will find reasons to insult others within the company (obstructive
destructive behavior). All items ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (always).
3.2.3 Leadership. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) developed by Bass
has been widely applied for over 20 years (Avolio et al., 1999). But intellectual stimulation
in Bass transformational leadership rarely appears in Chinese leadership and Chinese
culture emphasizes more on moral behavior (Ling et al., 2000; Li and Shi, 2005). So Li and
Shi modified the transformational leadership scale based on the MLQ according to Chinese
context (Li and Shi, 2005). Transformational leadership includes dimensions such as moral
behavior, charisma, individualized consideration and inspirational motivation. Sample
items are My superior share comforts and hardships with employees (moral behavior),
My supervisor loves his/her work and has ambition (charisma), My supervisor is willing
to help employees solve problems of life and family (individualized consideration) and My
supervisor talks optimistically about the future (inspirational motivation). The Cronbachs
alpha of this 26-item scale was 0.95. Transactional leadership was measured by Bass
scale, including contingent reward, active management-by-exception and passive
management-by-exception. Sample items include My supervisor rewards my
achievement (contingent reward), My supervisor focuses on all mistakes (active
management-by-exception) and My supervisor believes that if not broke, dont fix
(passive management-by-exception). The Cronbachs alpha of this 12-item scale was
0.75. All items ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
3.2.4 Control variables. In this research, employees gender, position level, enterprise
nature and industry are treated as control variables.
4. Results
Table I shows the means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients of variables
used in the analysis. The results showed that employees work stress has significantly
positive correlations with their negative behavior (r 0.35, p 0.01), work-laziness

Variable

Table 1.
Descriptive statistics and
correlations among
variables

WS
NB
WL
IM
OD
TS
TF

SD

WS

DB

WL

IM

OD

TS

TF

2.62
1.90
1.86
2.17
1.69
3.12
3.67

0.63
0.50
0.56
0.59
0.58
0.50
0.70

1
0.35**
0.30**
0.25**
0.36**
0.02
0.13*

1
0.88**
0.82**
0.88**
0.02
0.33**

1
0.57**
0.64**
0.06
0.25**

1
0.64**
0.03
0.30**

1
0.02
0.32**

1
0.47**

Notes: Significance at: * p 0.05 (two-tailed), ** p 0.01 (two-tailed); WS work stress,

NB negative behavior, WL work-laziness behavior, IM interpersonal-malicious behavior,
OD obstructive-destructive behavior, TS transactional leadership, TF transformational leadership

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behavior (r 0.30, p 0.01), interpersonal-malicious behavior (r 0.25, p 0.01) and

obstructive-destructive behavior (r 0.36, p 0.01). They provided support for H1,
H1a, H1b and H1c.
We conducted regressions of leadership, work stress and employee negative
behavior. Work stress and employee negative behavior were treated as dependent
variables separately. Employees gender, position level, enterprise nature and industry
were entered as control variables. Then, transactional and transformational leadership
were entered as independent variables. The regression results are found in Table II.
There is a positive correlation between transactional leadership and both stress (
0.126, Adj-R2 0.069, p 0.05) and employee negative behavior ( 0.214, Adj-R2
0.184, p 0.001). Thus, H2a and H2b were supported. Transformational leadership
negatively affected work stress ( 0.175, Adj-R2 0.069, p 0.01) and negative
behavior ( 0.435, Adj-R2 0.184, p 0.001), supporting H3a and H3b.
To explore the influences of different dimensions of leadership on work stress and
employee behavior, we conducted regressions of each dimension of transactional and
transformational leadership, stress and employee negative behavior, as shown in
Figure 2. Three dimensions of transactional leadership had no impacts on work stress.
However, contingent reward had a negative relationship with employee negative behavior
( 0.116, p 0.05), whereas passive management-by-exception had a positive
relationship with negative behavior ( 0.053, p 0.001). Four dimensions of
transformational leadership all reduced negative behavior ( 0.317, 0.331, 0.241,
0.234, p 0.001). Three dimensions of transformational leadership can relieve work stress,
except inspirational motivation ( 0.127, 0.118, 0.136, p 0.05).
Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to test the moderating effect. We
centered the independent variables before testing to reduce the multicollinearity in the
regression equations. First, the regression was conducted with control and dependent
variables. Then, independent and moderating variables were added. We put in
interaction terms of independent and moderating variables at last. The results of
regression are presented in Table III. Employees stress had a significant positive
relationship with their negative behavior ( 0.302, Adj-R2 0.273, p 0.001), which
supported H1. In Step 3, after adding in interaction terms of work stress and leadership,

Work stress and

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117

(t)
Model
Control variables
Gender
Position level
Enterprise nature
Industry
Independent variables
Transactional leadership
Transformational leadership
R2
Adjusted R2
F-value

Work stress

Negative behavior

0.074 (1.374)
0.187 (3.479)***
0.036 (0.665)
0.045 (0.815)

0.119 (2.337)*
0.046 (0.915)
0.180 (3.574)***
0.030 (0.582)

0.126 (2.099)*
0.175 (2.958)**
0.085
0.069
5.269***

0.214 (3.817)***
0.435 (7.859)***
0.198
0.184
13.971***

Notes: Significance at: * p 0.05; ** p 0.01; *** p 0.001 (two-tailed)

Table II.
Regression analysis of
leadership, work stress
and employee negative
behavior

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118
Figure 2.
Influences of dimensions
of leadership on work
stress and employee
negative behavior

Model

Table III.
Hierarchical regression
analysis: the moderating
effect of leadership

Step 1: Control
Gender
Level
Enterprise nature
Industry
Step 2: Main effect
Work stress
Transactional leadership
Transformational leadership
Step 3: Moderating effect
Work stress transactional
leadership
Work stress transformational
leadership
R2
Adjusted R2
F-value

0.139 (2.533)*
0.021 (0.393)
0.179 (3.283)***
0.028 (0.504)

Negative behavior

0.096 (1.995)*
0.102 (2.096)*
0.169 (3.540)***
0.043 (0.886)

0.097 (2.015)*
0.100 (2.063)*
0.176 (3.705)***
0.051 (1.062)

0.298 (6.192)***
0.176 (3.295)***
0.383 (7.194)***

0.302 (6.283)***
0.182 (3.407)***
0.377 (7.090)***
0.128 (2.481)*

0.052
0.041
4.693***

0.279
0.264
18.767***

0.049 (0.956)
0.292
0.273
15.464***

Notes: Significance at: * p 0.05; *** p 0.001 (two-tailed)

we found that interaction of stress and transactional leadership was significant to

employee negative behavior ( 0.128, Adj-R2 0.273, p 0.05), which meant that
transactional leadership moderated the relationship between work stress and employee
negative behavior, so the result supported H4. Transformational leadership had no
moderating effect ( 0.049, Adj-R2 0.273, p 0.05), so H5 was not supported.
Figure 3 demonstrates the relationships among variables we have explored.
Using method proposed by Luo and colleagues (2008) for testing the moderating
effect, we first calculated the median of transactional leadership, and then conducted
regressions in two groups separately below the median and above it, to observe the
model of work stress and employee negative behavior. As can be seen in Figure 4, in the

Work stress and

employee
behavior

Figure 3.
Relationships among
variables

Negative behavior

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119

High level of transactional leadership

Low level of transactional leadership

Work stress

condition of high level of transactional leadership, the slope between work stress and
employee negative behavior was much steeper than in the group of the low transactional
leadership. It means that with the increase of level of transactional leadership, managers
will pay more attention to the results of employees work and their subordinates tend to
be more concerned about the final award. Under the existing work stress, employees
may have more negative behavior to others and organization to achieve the goal and get
the award. Therefore, the moderating effect is stronger when the level of transactional
leadership is higher.
5. Conclusions and discussion
In this research, employees of different levels were investigated to explore the effects of
leadership and work stress on employee negative behavior and the moderating effect of
leadership on the relationship between stress and employee behavior. From the above
theoretical and empirical analyses, we can draw the following conclusions.
First, the empirical evidences supported that employees work stress has a
significant positive relationship with their negative behavior. Specifically, employees
with higher stress have more negative behavior in comparison with those employees
with lower work stress. This result is consistent with the previous researchers
theoretical assumptions (Cropanzano et al., 1997; Golparvar et al., 2012), which were
about the correlation between stress and employee negative behavior in workplace.

Figure 4.
The moderating effect of
transactional leadership
on the relationship
between work stress and
employee negative
behavior

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120

Second, transactional leadership directly leads to employee negative behavior and

strengthens the influence of work stress on negative behavior. This empirical study
develops Oaklanders and Fleishman (1964), Gills et al. (2006) and Yangs and Shi (2006)
views that leadership is related to work stress. They did not mention the positive
relationship between transactional leadership and work stress. We found that when
leaders pay more attention to the results, their subordinates tend to be more stressful.
When stress accumulates to a certain extent, employees may demonstrate negative
behavior to people or organizations. Thus, when the level of transactional leadership is
high, the positive relationship between employees work stress and their negative
behavior is stronger.
Third, transformational leadership mitigates work stress and reduces negative
behavior, which demonstrates that transformational leadership reduces work stress and
negative behavior, proposed by Bruursema (2004), Gill et al. (2006) and Khalid et al.
(2012). This indicates that transformational leadership helps employees to complete
various tasks and, meanwhile, delivers more positive thinking, which can significantly
reduce employees stress and negative behavior. However, transformational leadership
cannot weaken the influence of stress on negative behavior. Stress non-equilibrium
compensation model indicated that stress disturbs employees psychological and
behavioral equilibrium, and people engage in deviant behaviors to return the
equilibrium (Golparvar and Hosseinzadeh, 2011). This approach from stress to negative
behaviors has been generated by personal physiological, emotional and situational
factors so that transformational leadership cannot affect the individual self-regulation.
Therefore, transformational leadership does not reduce employee negative behavior
under work stress.
We believe that these conclusions are closely related to Chinese economic and
social environment. In the past 30 years, the Chinese government has been promoting
the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics by opening up and
marketization. The dissemination of foreign culture makes peoples values gradually
diversified, and the value of collectivism is being replaced by pursuit of profit and power
regardless of others interests. Hongyu (2012) research demonstrated that compared
with an individual with lower collectivism, using an individual with higher collectivism
is easier to feel the leaders authority, trust and welfare caring. The absence of social
morality and civic values leads to the lack of appropriate behavior guidance for
employees. Besides, inequitable distribution of organizational resource and lack of
communication channels lead to employees psychology imbalance. Perceptions of
unfairness increase work stress (Sloan, 2012). Leaders over-pursuit of efficiency and
result-orientation augment utilitarianism and impatience among employees.
Transactional leadership strengthens the influence of work stress on negative behavior
because of its emphases on instrumental exchange (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985; Bass and
Avolio, 1995). Specifically, it focuses on goal achievementreward relationship.
Transformational leadership can weaken subordinates stress and negative behavior
because of inspirational motivation and individualized consideration (Burns, 1978; Bass
and Avolio, 1995; Bass, 1996). Once the employees stress accumulates, negative
behavior would be accelerated to happen under transactional leadership and
transformational leadership cannot weaken it. These may explain why transactional
leadership moderates the relationship between stress and negative behavior, whereas
transformational leadership has no moderating effect.

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6. Managerial implications
Based on above research conclusions, we suggest that contingent reward, moral
behavior, charisma, individualized consideration and inspirational motivation can
effectively reduce employee negative behavior. Therefore, we propose a new type of
leadership in Chinese context.
This new leadership should have several characteristics. First, the leaders should
know subordinates expectations, and motivate employees according to their efforts.
They should lead by example and influence the subordinates by virtue. Leaders should
win employees support, respect and trust by showing abilities, charisma and being
good at learning. Leaders should be concerned about employees different needs and
help them develop their potentiality. Also, leaders should express inspiring visions and
high expectations for subordinates to stimulate their self-efficacy so that they make
active efforts for achieving organizational goal. In a word, this new leadership is
characterized by motivating employees, concern about subordinates and emphasizing
moral behavior and justice, and we can call it open leadership. We hope that this new
leadership style can reduce employees work stress and related negative behavior which
is harmful for organizations, and create a harmonious and orderly work environment to
give employees positive energy. Open leadership encourages employees to work
happily and promotes organizational development, and aims to achieve a win-win
situation for employees and the organization.
For managerial practice, our research has the following implications.
First, employees stress tolerance should be taken into account in selection and
recruitment. The employees with high self-control ability who can adjust themselves
from negative mood are more likely to contribute to a harmonious organization
atmosphere, which may in turn improve organizational performance. Consequently, the
human resource department should establish a scientific recruitment system to recruit
employees with good resilience and high stress tolerance, particularly for marketing and
senior management positions.
Second, organizations should enhance stress management actively. From the
perspective of organization, managers should try to control the stressors, and create a
harmonious corporate culture and comfortable work environment. These can be done by
conducting satisfaction surveys and advocating democratic participation.
Psychological counseling institutions can be helpful for employees to reasonably
attribute and vent negative emotion to reduce employee negative behavior. For
managers, they should pay attention to psychological needs of employees, and try to
cultivate a psychological contract between employees and the company rather than only
a labor contract. In this way, employees will not only regard the work as merely a job,
but may attempt manage the work stress by themselves. Also, the sense of belonging
resulting from psychological contract will help employees to control their own behavior,
and restrain the deviant behavior to some extent.
Furthermore, leaders should develop open leadership style and reduce short-term,
utilitarian exchange behavior. By demonstrating personal charisma, leaders should
convey organizational missions, improve employees values and beliefs, build a trust
and supportive atmosphere and affect subordinates psychologically. Employees should
be not only required to complete task or achieve performance, but also cared emotionally
and psychologically. If they approve philosophy and goals of managers and
organizations, they are more likely to work hard for the common vision. In this way,

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organizational commitment will be improved and negative behavior will be restrained

effectively.
Finally, enterprise distribution system should be improved to achieve principle and
procedural justice. Injustice will produce dissatisfaction and subsequent contradictions
and conflicts. However, the key component to organizational justice is not equality of
results, but the fairness of processes and principles. A fair process will help to avoid
employees perception of injustice and negative behaviors.
7. Limitations and future research
This study has several limitations. First, the research only focuses on the impact of the
work stress and leadership on employee negative behavior. The influences of other
factors on employee behavior, such as organizational culture and centralization degree,
were not taken into account. Second, we just used the overall work stress scores to
investigate the relationship between work stress and employee negative behavior.
Further research can explore the effects of stress different dimensions on negative
behavior. Finally, open leadership needs structural dimensions refinement and more
empirical studies to test its effectiveness.
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Further reading
Zhang, Y. and Chen, W.Z. (2008b), The research of the relationship between job stress and
employee workplace deviance, East China Economic Management, Vol. 22 No. 10,
pp. 90-94.
About the authors
Yan-Hong Yao, PhD, is Professor of Management in School of Business Administration at Hunan
University, Changsha, China. Her research focuses on OB and HRM.
Ying-Ying Fan is a Master candidate in School of Business Administration at Hunan
University, with research interests in HRM. Ying-Ying Fan is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: fanyylucy@gmail.com
Yong-Xing Guo is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
His research interests include HRM and Industrial Relations in China.
Yuan Li is Master in School of Business Administration at Hunan University, with research
interests in HRM.

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