How Followers’ Perception of Insider Status Influences the Relationship Between Servant Leadership and Work Attitude? I NTERNATIONAL J OURNAL

Servant leadership starts with an individual whose main interests are to serve, inspire and lead followers. Thus, the servant leader is an individual who is always pursuing and looking for better ways to achieve shared goals with fellow workers. The current study investigates the influencing mechanism of servant leadership on job satisfaction based on the social identity theory. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to develop a model of perceived insider status that mediates the relationships between servant leadership and employee job satisfaction. Data were collected from matched 90 leaders and 285 followers from the service industry in Taiwan. To avoid common method variance issue, we collected data across three-time points from two different sources. The statistical analyses included descriptive analysis, correlational approach, confirmatory factor analysis, and multi-level analyses. Using the bootstrapping method, the indirect effects of servant leadership on job satisfaction via perceived insider status were found to be significant. This study underscores the importance of encouraging leaders to engage in servant leader behaviors, thereby enhancing followers’ perception as insiders and improving followers' job satisfaction. Since servant leaders focus on employee-oriented tactics, it is essential to train leaders to enhance followers’ intrinsic motivation and shape their perceptions of belongingness and effectiveness.

When a new group is established, group members become acquainted with each other and their organizations through the process of organizational socialization. Such a process aims to connect new groups with their environments (Thomas & Anderson, 1998) and for group members to understand the responsibilities and culture (Stamper & Masterson, 2002). Through organizational socialization, individuals may perceive themselves as insiders within a particular group (Stamper & Masterson, 2002, p. 876).
The concept of Perceived Insider Status (PIS) can be explained using the social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), which suggests that an individual feels a sense of belonging to particular groups. Social identity theory underlines the importance of an individual's selfconcept. An individual may act differently in various social contexts, depending on their group affiliations. Studies have identified similarities between PIS and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) in the in-group versus out-group context (Tyler & Blader, 2003). Particularly, Stamper and Masterson (2002) defined PIS as perceiving insider status between an employee and an organization. They suggested that PIS is a specific measure of the feeling of insider status in the employee-organization relationship, whereas LMX is an employee-leader relationship. LMX theory holds that leaders should provide rewards and/or support for in-group members that may not be accessible to other out-group members (Tyler & Blader, 2003). The in-group members experience favorable treatment from their leaders and therefore are more likely to feel like an insider within the team (Eisenberger et al., 2002).
Servant leadership emphasizes the emotional, relational, and moral aspects (Reed, Vidaver-Cohen, & Colwell, 2011) that contribute to the sense of personal accomplishment when dealing with work-related stress. Servant leadership starts with an individual whose main interests are to serve, inspire and lead followers. Thus, the servant leader is an individual who is always pursuing and looking for better ways to achieve shared goals with fellow workers. They consider creating value for others, embracing a holistic way to work, promoting a concept of teams, and sharing ideas in decision-making (Reed et al., 2011). Through these behaviors, servant leaders strengthen followers' perceived insider status within the organization, increasing followers' intrinsic motivation and willingness to perform extra roles or -tasks that are not written responsibilities (Panaccio et al., 2015). Thus, in this study, PIS serves as a crucial intrinsic motivation that links servant leadership and job satisfaction. We theorize that PIS mediates the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction.
By investigating how servant leadership is linked to job satisfaction through the mediating effects of perceived insider status, this study aims to contribute to the servant leadership literature and PIS literature in several ways. First, this study reinforces servant leadership as a key factor in engaging employees (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). The theory of servant leadership is of great value to the enhancement of followers' motivation and the prioritization of followers' needs. As servant leaders are perceived to be ethical, acceptive, and empathetic of their followers (Van Dierendonck, 2011), they tend to have empowering, sensing of trust, and respectful relationships with their followers (Akdol & Arikboga, 2017). Servant leaders empower followers and hold them to a good degree of accountability based on their abilities, needs, and what they can control in an outcome. Consequently, followers enjoy greater autonomy and discretion in their jobs and are more likely to meet the requirements of their roles and perform other non-required tasks.
The current study is one of few that examines mediating psychological processes to illustrate how servant leadership influences followers' job satisfaction. In doing so, our study answers how PIS could play a mediator to link the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction. It provides empirical evidence in support of servant leadership, social identity, and social exchange theories (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005;Stamper & Masterson, 2002). Furthermore, we highlight the possibility of training servant leaders to positively influence their followers by strengthening insider's perspectives and feelings of empowerment. Servant leaders can inspire followers to identify themselves as part of the same group or team. Finally, followers internalize the servant leader's values and beliefs and seek appraisal and recognition from the leaders (Akdol & Arikboga, 2017;Sun, 2013).

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Servant Leadership and Job Satisfaction
Servant leaders can motivate followers by emphasizing the fulfillment of followers' needs (Greenleaf, 1970). The followers' needs include personal growth and development, empowerment, and well-being. Servant leaders generate followers' respect by displaying a willingness to sacrifice for others, employing moral and ethical rules, and providing guidance (van Dierendonck, 2011). Followers are inspired and influenced by their leaders' attitudes, values, and behaviors. By fostering followers' growth and satisfying their needs in an authentic and empowering manner, servant leaders influence followers' creative potential and organizational outcomes (Williams et al., 2017).
Through the articulation of inspiring visions, servant leaders provide an environment wherein followers are encouraged to explore new ideas. Because servant leadership is employee-focused in nature, it allows for mistakes or creates a culture with the experimentation of new ideas and thus facilitates employee satisfaction. Servant leaders who encourage employees' development and facilitate a sense of belonging are likely to nurture a feeling of autonomy (Ekmekci et al., 2021;Yang, Liu, & Gu, 2017). Servant leaders prioritize employees' needs before their own and provide the necessary support to satisfy employees. Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses: H 1 : Team leaders' servant leadership is positively related to followers' job satisfaction. H 2 : Team leaders' servant leadership is positively associated with followers' perceived insider status.

Perceived Insider Status: A Social Identity Theory Perspective
PIS is defined as "the extent to which an individual perceives oneself as an insider within a particular organization" (Stamper & Masterson, 2002, p. 876). Research has examined PIS from various perspectives. When explaining PIS as a type of member-group relationship, organizational identification is often used (Ashforth & Meal, 1989). The primary idea of social identity theory is that people classify themselves into various categories, for example, according to ethnicity, age generation, or organizational membership (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Ashforth and Meal (1989) suggested that an individual perceives themself as belonging to a social category without complete internalization (which is defined as values, attitudes, and beliefs). Members within the same social category may share emotional attachment, common experience, interests, and values (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).
Social identity theory also encompasses the concept of social comparison. Individuals positively evaluate their in-group to differentiate themselves from other out-groups (Turner, 1978). Group members must internalize their self-concept and subjectively identify with their in-groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Closeness, difference, and situational salience determine the distinct differences between out-and in-groups (Turner, 1978).
Social identification is psychologically connected with the success or failure of the group. Brewer (1979) suggested that the allocation of members to a particular group creates in-group preference. Individuals identify with the distinctive and respectable in-group and become rivalry with other groups (Ashforth & Meal, 1989). Followers identify with their social categories to enhance self-confidence (Tajfel, 1978). Once followers self-identify with their leaders or groups, they are prone to undertake favorable behaviors toward their groups. Therefore, PIS entails a process of social identity that facilitates followers' self-esteem and sense of belonging and further influences organizational outcomes.

PIS and Job Satisfaction
PIS provides a sense of recognition and acceptance by their leaders and in-group team members-a crucial psychological perception that allows insiders to feel comfortable engaging in social exchanges within the group. According to the social exchange theory, positive social exchanges involve the norm of reciprocity, such that people will exchange in ways that benefit both themselves and others (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005;Gouldner, 1960). In our theoretical model, employees perceive their leaders as servant leaders that prioritize followers' needs, thereby strengthening perceived insider status and capturing employees' relatedness with their teams. Thus, employees show job satisfaction.
The perception of being an insider helps facilitate the recognition of the social norm of reciprocity, thereby creating a feeling of intimacy and increasing an individual's motivation (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Furthermore, the social norm of reciprocity prompts employees to consider ways to reciprocate to their organization; this creates a role identity and a set of role expectations through internalization processes (Wang et al., 2017). Previous research also supports this positive association between PIS and performance (Chen & Aryee, 2007).
Taking the norm of reciprocity perspective (Gouldner, 1960), when employees perceive themselves as insiders, they believe that their contributions to the organization are treasured (Hui, Lee, & Wang, 2015), that they are appreciated by their supervisors and peers, and that they are part of an organization in-group. Followers are more likely to respond positively to the organization, which is reflected in greater job satisfaction (Allen & Meyer, 1990). The perception of being an insider is a feeling of assurance, leading to job satisfaction. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis: H 3 : PIS is positively related to followers' job satisfaction.

Mediating Role of PIS
Studies have supported the premise that leadership is related to employee job satisfaction (Neubert et al., 2008;Williams et al., 2017); yet, the mechanism of how leadership influences job satisfaction is relatively less studied (Hunter et al., 2013;Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Combining the aforementioned hypotheses, we develop a mediation model, proposing that the characteristics of servant leaders are likely to increase followers' job satisfaction by strengthening followers' perceived insider status. In addition, servant leaders influence followers' behavior and performance by promoting individuals' learning and growth, facilitating new approaches, and enabling novel and useful ideas (Neubert et al., 2008;Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Besides nurturing a sense of psychological security and a trustworthy climate, servant leaders encourage followers to undertake behaviors beyond their written tasks and responsibilities (van Dierendonck, 2011).
The perception of being an insider provides a sense of belonging to the group members that helps build the relationships between members, group, and organizations (Pierce et al., 1989;Stamper & Masterson, 2002). PIS can also be treated as an individual's identification with the leader. Through the process of identification, followers could be inspired or influenced by their leaders (Gu, Tang, & Jiang, 2015). Riketta (2005) found a positive relationship between a strong identification and job satisfaction and in-role performance. The feeling of being an insider leads team members to consider themselves to be competent, meaningful, and valuable (Yang et al., 2018). PIS can reflect followers' expectations in intangible social and non-economic exchanges with their leaders or employers (Coyle- Shapiro & Conway, 2005). Followers can fulfill their personal developmental needs, such as self-esteem, through their leaders' supportive resources, thus engendering a positive attitude toward their teams (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). As we mentioned in the previous paragraph, this exchange foundation is derived from the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), which calls for encouraging favorable treatment behavior and discouraging unfavorable treatment behavior. The norm of reciprocity can stabilize social groups and maintain social relationships.
To summarize, we developed a theory linking servant leadership to perceived insider status and related perceived insider status to job satisfaction. We demonstrate that higher PIS can lead to higher job satisfaction as a result of servant leaders motivating followers (Chen & Aryee, 2007). Integrating the relationships, we propose that perceived insider status mediates the relationships of servant leadership with job satisfaction. The mediating relationship is consistent with the perception-attitude-behavior relations theorized in previous studies (Chen & Aryee, 2007;Stamper & Masterson, 2002) as well as the norm of reciprocity from the social exchange theory (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Therefore, we regard PIS as a mediator in the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction.

Participants and Procedure
This study used convenient sampling to solicit participants from the service industry. All participants had a minimum of one-year working experience within the team. We sent out surveys to 111 teams and 392 participants during the years 2015-2018. A total of 107 participants did not complete all the surveys, resulting in a final sample of 285 participants across 90 teams, with 3-5 team members on average. The effective return rate was 73%. The average age was 28.8 years, with 62.1% female participants. Approximately 68% of participants engaged in extracurricular activities, and 34.7% have leadership experiences. Participants were requested to answer three surveys during their team activities: 1) the first survey (containing measures of servant leadership and PIS) was conducted during the 6th week, 2) the second survey (containing measures of servant leadership and PIS) was conducted during the 12th week, and 3) the third survey (containing measures of job satisfaction and control variables) was conducted during the 18th week. One way to minimize the common method variance was to collect data at separate time points to avoid participants postulating the study purpose. Thus, we used servant leadership from the first time survey, PIS from the second time survey, and job satisfaction and control variables from the third time survey, respectively. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (15-CT2-17 (141117-1). Informed consent was also obtained during the survey.

Measures
Unless otherwise noted, items were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Servant leadership. The servant leadership scale was measured using an 18-item scale from van Dierendonck et al. (2017). This is a team-level measure. One of the sample items is "My leader gives me the information I need to do my work well." Four items were deleted based on the criteria of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Hoyle, 1995). The results of the CFA showed an acceptable fit (χ 2 (77, N = 285) = 284.80, p < .05; CFI = .90, TLI = .89, RMSEA = .09, SRMR = .05). In this study, the Cronbach's alpha for this scale was .93. Ratings on the five dimensions were averaged as a single servant leadership score.
Servant leaders are often viewed as role models, given their formal status and priority in serving others first (Yukl, 2013), which results in followers imitating the behaviors of their immediate superiors (Weiss, 1977). Whether the leaders possess servant leadership must be agreed upon by members of the unit; thus, the aggregated value or average of all followers' ratings was used to represent the level of servant leadership. Because servant leadership is a team-level variable, we examined whether the aggregating individual score is appropriate for this variable. The median rWG(j) value was .94 for servant leadership, indicating strong interrater agreement (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984). We tested the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to examine if the multilevel analyses were appropriate. Results indicated that ICC (1) and ICC (2) for servant leadership were .18 and .41, respectively, exhibiting adequate levels of agreement and between-group differences (Byrne, 2012;Shieh, 2016). The aforementioned values support our use of the aggregate individual score for the team-level servant leadership (LeBreton & Senter, 2008).

Perceived insider status (PIS).
The PIS was adopted from Stamper and Masterson's (2002) 6-item scale. Team members self-rated this scale. The sample items included, "I feel very much a part of my work organization," and "My work organization makes me believe that I am included in it." The scale exhibited good internal consistency (α = .84).
Job satisfaction. Four items were measured for job satisfaction. Three items were adopted from Seashore et al. (1982). These items were "Overall, I am satisfied with my group''; ''In general, I don't like my group''; and ''In general, I like working in the group.'' Based on expert suggestion, one more item was added "If I can choose again, I will still join this group," to account for job satisfaction's relation to loyalty, intention to stay, employee security, and job pride (Gaertner & Nollen, 1992;Keiningham et al., 2007;Magee, 2015). A higher score indicated higher satisfaction. The CFA results showed acceptable fit (χ 2 (2, N = 285) = 4.22, p > .05; CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .02). The internal consistency of this scale was α = .85.
Control variables. We included age (measured in years) and gender (coded 1 = male, 0 = female) in the teams as control variables as they are related to employees' work-related outcomes (Chiniara & Bentein, 2016). Job satisfaction depends on the discrepancy between the job employees want and the job they actually have (Lance et al., 1995). Motivation and job satisfaction change with age, specifically for middle-aged and older workers (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004, p. 440). One study pointed out that older employees were more motivated by intrinsic rewards while younger employees were more motivated by extrinsic rewards (Inceoglu et al., 2012). Gender differences in job satisfaction may not apply to all professions. For example, one British survey found that men and women with the same jobs reported identical job satisfaction, but women's expectations were relatively lower than that of men (Clark, 1997). Other studies, however, have found men to be more satisfied than women in their jobs (Forgionne & Peeters, 1982;Shapiro & Stern, 1975). Moreover, previous studies have shown that followers' extracurricular activity experiences (EAE) (1 = yes, 0 = no) and experience in leading extracurricular activity (LEA) (1 = yes, 0 = no) influence interpersonal skills and early career job satisfaction (Rubin, Bommer, & Baldwin, 2002). Therefore, we also controlled for these factors. Both EAE and LEA were measured as dichotomous variables.

Data Analysis
To evaluate leaders' servant leadership, we invited multiple followers to evaluate their team leader. The nested structure implies the interdependence among individuals in the same team with its own norms and leadership style (Dyer, Hanges, & Hall, 2005). We used MPlus 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2015 with the estimation of maximum likelihood to test our multilevel models. To examine the model fits, we used AMOS 18 to evaluate the comparative fit index (CFI) (≥ .90), Tucker-Lewis fit index (TLI) (≥ .90), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) indices (≥ .08), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) (≥ .08) to indicate a good model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
To test the hypotheses, we performed two-level multilevel (followers nested in each team) mediation designs with traditional 2-1-1 multilevel modeling (Preacher et al., 2010). To examine the mediating effects, we used the Monte Carlo method to conduct the simulation with a bootstrapping procedure (5,000 iterations) with R-3.5.0 (Selig & Preacher, 2008).

Hypothesis Tests
As presented in Table 2, the relationship between servant relationship and job satisfaction was statistically significant (γ = .19, p < .001). Therefore, H1 is supported. Results indicated that H2 is supported that servant leadership was statistically related to PIS (γ = .24, p < .001). H3 is supported too because PIS was significantly associated with job satisfaction (γ = .37, p < .001). .66 .45 .45 Note. N = 285 (Level 1); N = 90 (Level 2). Values in parentheses are standard error. All entries corresponding to the predicting variables are unstandardized estimations of the fixed effects, γs, with robust standard errors. EAE means to extracurricular activity experience. LEA is an experience in leading extracurricular activities. ***p < .001 **p < .01 *p < .05.

Discussion
Based on the theory of social identity, this cross-level study demonstrates that servant leaders influence followers' perception of being insiders, positively impacting job satisfaction. These findings provide substantial contributions to the servant leadership literature from several perspectives. First, servant leadership is one of the interactive leadership styles in terms of leaders' and followers' engagement. Servant leaders focus on serving members by prioritizing followers' needs over the leaders' interest (Northouse, 2007), increasing followers' job satisfaction. Our results indicated that servant leadership has a positive influence on job satisfaction (Neubert, Hunter, & Tolentino, 2016;van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011).
Second, because servant leaders encourage a climate of service and caring for followers, followers may receive positive emotional feelings from their leaders and perceive themselves as insiders. The perception of being insiders enhances followers' intrinsic motivation. A servant leader recognizes and realizes each follower's abilities and creates personal development opportunities for the followers (Greenleaf, 1998). A crucial characteristic of servant leadership is to empower people, which refers to giving power to others (Conger, 2000). The purpose of empowerment is to foster followers' self-confidence and provide them with power, thereby encouraging followers' personal development (van Dierendonck, 2011). The present study affirms that servant leadership influences followers' job satisfaction through increased PIS.
Our study extends the mediating mechanism through which servant leadership influences job satisfaction. This study noted that followers' self-identification is indicated when their PIS partially mediates the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction. PIS indicates that followers subjectively identified with the relevant in-group and internalized themselves as

Servant Leadership
Perceived Insider Status Job Satisfaction .11** .37*** .24*** their group membership. This differentiates the group from others and provides a unique identity for the group. PIS influences followers' feelings of prestige for their groups through intergroup comparison, thus facilitating self-esteem. When followers identify themselves with their servant leaders, they engender followers' intrinsic motivation, and they will lead followers to feel comfortable confronting challenges and attempting new approaches while performing their jobs (Zhang & Bartol, 2010) and increase job satisfaction (Lawler & Hall, 1970).
The PIS of followers also suggests a positive leader-follower relationship that fulfills the followers' social psychological needs (e.g., sense of identity, belonging, and mutual trust; Sluss & Ashforth, 2007) and task-related requirements (e.g., supporting and facilitating new approaches and useful ideas). Therefore, followers' positive perception of the leader-follower relationship builds mutual trust and increases satisfaction, as evidenced in this study. PIS can reflect followers' more immediate interests and requirements and is, therefore, a significant predictor of job satisfaction (Knapp, Smith, & Sprinkle, 2014).

Implications
The current research underscores several practical implications for organizations. First, this study explains that servant leaders facilitate followers' PIS and use it to further increase job satisfaction. Organizations can derive increased benefits if followers perceive themselves as crucial members of the groups. Therefore, because servant leaders focus on employee-oriented tactics, it is essential to train leaders to enhance followers' intrinsic motivation and shape their perceptions of belongingness and effectiveness.
Second, our results highlight the benefits that leaders gain from using servant leadership to increase followers' PIS and indirectly enhance job satisfaction. A servant leader can positively influence followers to manage their work by empowering them. Leaders should pay close attention to nurturing the relationship between themselves and their followers. Followers can perceive their relationship as either insiders or outsiders, which can positively or negatively influence followers' identification (Chiniara & Bentein, 2018). Additionally, our research indicates that servant leaders influence followers' intrinsic motivation by facilitating their PIS, which encourages followers to achieve work meaningfulness, attempt challenging tasks, and ultimately increase job satisfaction. Followers are prone to regard their groups positively when they perceive their leaders to be prioritizing their personal development, thus increasing the levels of organizational identification (Knapp et al., 2014). Because leadership behavior can be developed, training leaders with servant leadership skills through community services to develop a strong sense of social responsibilities and thus become good leaders in the future.

Limitations and Future Research
This study has several limitations. The study data regarding servant leadership, PIS, and job satisfaction were collected by followers, thus suggesting potential common method bias. In this study, we attempted to reduce the potential common method bias by using recommendations from Podsakoff et al. (2003) and collecting data from two different sources at three different periods. In addition to the time-separated measurements, we also aggregated servant leadership to the group level. The efforts from the multilevel design and variables collected at different time points suggest that the common method bias is not a critical problem. Future research should engage longitudinal designs and repeated observations to comprehensively assess the dynamic relationships among servant leadership, attitudes, and work-related outcomes.
Although this study contributed findings regarding the significance of intrinsic motivation on job satisfaction by examining the mediating role of PIS, studies exploring the potential effects of extrinsic rewards on the relationships between servant leadership and job satisfaction in organizations are also recommended. Finally, individual differences may account for the variance in job satisfaction; therefore, personality traits may also be crucial moderators of individual and organizational behaviors. Focusing on personality traits may help understand how individual differences influence how servant leadership is related to significant workrelated outcomes.

Conclusion
This study provides empirical evidence regarding servant leadership theory by expanding Greenleaf's original proposition that servant leadership focuses on serving others and further influencing work-related outcomes. By understanding servant leadership, the current study identifies a crucial mechanism, PIS, through which these leader behaviors influence followers' job satisfaction. In particular, PIS strongly increases job satisfaction by providing followers with a sense of belonging and the perception of receiving support.