The Influence Mechanism Of Leader Gratitude Expression On Newcomer Proactive Career Behavior

With the development of borderless careers and volatile career stages,proactive career behavior research has become increasingly valuable in theoretical and practical career management.Despite the increasingly growing empirical research on proactive career behavior,the critical issue of how and when does leader gratitude expressions influence newcomer’s proactive career behavior has been overlooked.In response to recent calls for exploring how and when does leaders emotional expressions influence newcomer career behaviors,this study presents a multilevel framework to examine whether,why,and when leader gratitude expression impact newcomers’ proactive career behavior.According to the emotion-as-social-information model and conservation of resources theory,this study systematically reviewed relevant theoretical and empirical results in the areas of leader gratitude expression,proactive career behavior,pride,feeling trusted of supervisor,and leader-member exchange,and proposed a moderated mediation model that explored how leader gratitude expression affects newcomers’ proactive career behavior.Two-stage questionnaire research was used in this study to analyze a valid sample of 215 newcomers,and the results indicated that(1)Leader gratitude expression can positively influence newcomers’ proactive career behavior;(2)Leader gratitude expression can influence newcomers’ proactive career behavior through emotional contagion(pride)and information processing mechanisms(feeling trusted of supervisor);(3)Leader-member exchange had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between leader gratitude expression and newcomers’ pride and feeling trusted of supervisor.Among these,leadermember exchange positively moderates the relationship between leader gratitude expression and newcomers’ pride.The stronger the newcomer’s leader-member exchange,the stronger the positive relationship between leader gratitude expression on newcomers’ pride,and the weaker the opposite.Leader-member exchange negatively moderates the relationship between leader gratitude expression and newcomers’ feeling trusted of supervisor.The stronger the newcomer’s leader-member exchange,the weaker the positive relationship between leader gratitude expression on newcomers’ feeling trusted of supervisor,and the stronger the opposite.The theoretical contributions of this study mainly consist of three aspects.To begin with,this study provides further insight into how leader gratitude expression influences newcomers’ proactive career behavior.Then,this study introduces the emotion-as-socialinformation model into the study of newcomers’ proactive career behavior,exploring whether emotional responses and inferential processing mechanisms can explain whether leader gratitude expression affects newcomers’ proactive career behavior.With this focus,the current research can provide a relatively complete picture of the mechanisms linking leader gratitude expression to newcomers’ proactive career behavior.Lastly,this research identifies leader-member exchange as a moderator to investigate the effects of leader gratitude expression,extending the boundary conditions of leader gratitude expression effect.Researchers should focus on the boundaries of leader gratitude expression,as well as the importance of leader-member exchange.