THE ROLES OF INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM AMONG PATERNALISTIC LEADERSHIP, MOBBING AND ORGANIZATIONAL CYNICISM RELATIONSHIPS

The literature exploring under what conditions different leadership practices might be more effective generally focused on the qualities of the leaders, followers, organizations and cultures. In this frame, paternalistic leadership emerges as a hot topic referring to a particular type of leadership mostly preferred by followers in collectivistic cultures. This study investigates the mediating effect of mobbing on the relationship between paternalistic leadership and organizational cynicism. It also explores whether the influence of paternalistic leadership on mobbing differs among the cultural values. The sample contained 333 employees working in different companies located in an Organized Industrial Region. The survey data were gathered through 'Paternalistic Leadership','Workplace Bullying', 'Organizational Cynicism', and 'INDCOL' Scales. The hypotheses are tested by using PROCESS macro suggested by Hayes (2018). The significant indirect effect suggested that mobbing acts as a mediator on paternalistic leadership and organizational cynicism linkage. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that such mediation effect does not vary among the levels of collectivist and individualist cultural values. However, among the cultural values, only collectivism (but not individualism) has found to moderate the effect of paternalistic leadership on mobbing. Within the high collectivist employees, mobbing perceptions weaken when the perception of paternalistic leadership increases.