International Journal of Organizational Leadership

There is inconsistency in positioning general motivation constructs within the broader leadership research. The main purpose of the current study was to review major social constructs of motivation applied in leadership studies and then empirically investigate their associations. Data was collected using self-reported measures from 316 business students to test our theoretical models. Properties of the models, including validity and common method bias, were assessed and controlled before hypothesis testing using variance-based structural equation modeling. This study offers several original contributions. First, reviewing the literature, we identify major social constructs of motivation central to leadership studies including self-efficacy, self-regulation, causal attributions, goal orientation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Second, applying the regulatory focus perspective, we offer a new taxonomy of the constructs (promotional vs. preventive). Third, using empirical data, we establish a nomological network amongst the six social constructs of motivation. The study yielded an integrative theory of motivation by establishing a network of cause-and-effect amongst six popular social constructs of motivation in leadership research. Two complementary (promotional vs. preventive) models of motivation were developed to predict dimensions of creative outcome (idea generation and exploration). Forth, building on the findings, we provide early evidence for further decomposition of general self-efficacy constructs into “promotional self-efficacy” vs. “preventive self-efficacy”. Implications of the findings for leadership research were also discussed.

Leadership is both an art and a skill. As a skill, it requires the practical ability of an individual, group, or organization to lead, influence, and guide other individuals. As an art, leadership requires the art of motivating a group of people to act unanimously toward achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can guide employees with a strategy to meet the company's needs. Leadership has widely been studied from the Western perspective; however, this study focuses on exploring leadership from the eastern perspective. There is a certain hegemony of Western leadership ideas, which are not aligned with oriental cultures and workplaces. Moreover, this study explores how leadership is defined, evolved, and how the Western school of thought has solely influenced it. To explore the concept of leadership, a qualitative approach was taken. Qualitative open-ended fifteen interviews were conducted with theorists and practitioners of management and business studies from three nationalities i.e. Pakistan, Turkey, and Malaysia. The findings highlight that leadership literature stems from Western values, which is incongruent with Eastern literature and wisdom and specifically not aligned with indigenous thoughts of Pakistan, Turkey, and Malaysia. Respondents considered it another form of hegemony and urged for pacing up critical studies in the realm of leadership. Respondents also added that if more studies are taken into account from Eastern cultures, more avenues could be opened to address the dilemmas in management sciences.