The Effect Of CEO's Inclusive Leadership On Employee's Proactive Behaviors

With the increased economic integration and transformation, the operating environment of Chinese enterprises has changed a great deal. A new generation of workershave become the main force in the labor market, and HRM in Chinese enterprises are facing increased diversification. In addition, with rapid economic transformation, enterprises need to deal with labor shortage. All of these require the enterprises to adapt to the new environment as soon as possible, developing a new way to survive and thrive. Or else, these enterprises will have to be knocked out in the market competition. In this sense, the enterprises need to encourage employees to have more proactive behaviors so as to find the possible threats for the organization and revitalize the organization. This dissertation tests the influence of CEO's inclusive leadership on employee's proactive behaviors at work, and examins the mediator role of employment relation climate in the process. The conclusion provides significant value to management theory and practice. The main variables are relatively new concepts which meet the practical requirments but have huge research gaps. Through cross-level integration between organizational and individual factors, the paper investigates and reveals the mechanism of how CEO's leadership influences emloyees' behaviors.To test this hypothesis, from November of 2014 to May of 2015, surveys were conducted in many provinces like Guangdong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Tianjin. A total of 134 Vice Presidents surveys,134 HR manager surveys, and 1214 employee surveys were collected. The data results showed that (1) CEO's includsive leadership can affect the employee's proactive behaviors; (2) CEO's inclusive leadership can affect the employment relation climate; (3) Employment can affect the employee's proactive behaviors significantly; (4) the employment climate can mediate the main effect between CEO's inclusive leadership and proactive behaviors; (5) Organization structure can moderate the relationship between CEO's inclusive leadership and employement relation climate.The thesis provides new insights for enterprises on employee behavior management. Theoretically, according to the upper echelons theory, the dissertation investigates the influence of CEO's inclusive leadership on employee's proactive behaviors, enriching the previous conclusions of inclusive leadership. On the other hand, the dissertation finds the role of employment relation climate in the relationship between CEO's leadership and employee bahaviors which inspires future research in this area. In practice, the dissertation conclusion can help enterprises know the influence of CEO's leadership on employee behaviors from a new perspective. In addition, the dissertation discusses the mediator of employment relation climate which enlighten the practitioners how to create a better employment relation climate.The dissertation also has some limitations. For example, it focuses on CEOs in large and medium enterprises, but the CEO's leadership can change in the different enterprise development period. In addition, many other human relation factors can provide explanations for the process in which the CEO's inclusive leadership affect the employee's proactive behaviors. Therefore, future research can include investigation on the positive influence of inclusive leadership on proactive behaviors, and other factors in organization and individual levels may exert their influence in this process.