Does Leader-Follower Regulatory Fit Matter? The Role of Regulatory Fit in Followers’ Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

Due to increasing organizational demand and competition, employees’ goal-pursuit regulatory processes become pivotal to their work behavior and outcomes. Drawing on interpersonal regulatory fit theory, we proposed that leader prevention focus would moderate the relation between follower prevention focus and maintenance organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), whereas the relation between follower promotion focus and change OCB would be moderated by leader promotion focus. We tested these fit hypotheses using cross-level polynomial regression analyses conducted on 117 leader and 641 followers in South Korean firms. The results showed that followers’ prevention focus was positively associated with their maintenance OCB. This main effect was more pronounced when the leader’s prevention focus was high than when it was low. While we detected a significant main effect of follower promotion focus on change OCB, no fit effect was found for promotion focus. The implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are addressed.