The Influence of Differential Leadership on Employees’ Affective Commitment: A Perspective of the Insiders and Outsiders

Abstract

From the perspective of the insiders and outsiders, this study explores theinfluence of differential leadership on employees’ affective commitmentand the moderating effect of leader’s self-enhancing humor and individual traditionality. The results show that the differential leadership has apositive impact on the organizational affective commitment of employees, the leader’s self-enhancing humor and the employees’ traditionalityplay a positive regulatory role respectively. Moreover, compared with theoutsiders, the low traditionality has a stronger influence on the relationship between differential leadership and organizational affective commitment of the insiders. This paper enriches the research on the influenceof leadership style on employee’s affective commitment, proposes andverifies the moderation of leader’s self-enhancing humor and employee’straditionality, which complements the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of differential leadership style.