Fostering a salesperson’s team identification: An investigation into the effects of leader-follower emotional intelligence congruence from a person–environment fit perspective

Zhonghua Gao, Chen Zhao and Yonghong Liu

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 158, issue C

Abstract: Integrating the person–environment (PE) fit theory with the literature on social identification, we investigate how leader–follower congruence in emotional intelligence (EI) fosters the focal follower’s team identification. We propose that EI (in)congruence between followers and their team leader significantly affects the followers’ relational separation of leader-member exchange (LMXRS), an individual-within-team level construct that indicates one’s relative standing in the team and is operationalized as the Euclidean distance between followers and their team members in terms of perceived LMX quality. Moreover, leader–follower EI (in)congruence indirectly affects the followers’ team identification via the mediating role of LMXRS. The proposed theoretical model was supported by field data collected from 1,416 leader–follower dyads in 143 sales teams across two-time points using polynomial regression and response surface methodology. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Keywords: Congruence; Emotional intelligence; Team identification; Polynomial regression; Response surface analyses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323000127
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:158:y:2023:i:c:s0148296323000127

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113654

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().