The impact of leader communication on free-riding: An incentivized experiment with empowering and directive styles

• Published in: The Leadership quarterly 2020-06, Vol.31 (3), p.101351, Article 101351
• Main Authors: Boulu-Reshef, Béatrice, Holt, Charles A., Rodgers, Matthew S., Thomas-Hunt, Melissa C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Between-subjects design; Communication; Cooperation; Empowerment; Experiments; Free-riding; Human resource management; Humanities and Social Sciences; Leader communication; Leadership; Leadership style; Public good game
• ISSN: 1048-9843; 1873-3409
• DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101351

Organizations often appoint leaders to foster cooperation. This paper studies the effect of leader communication on free-riding behavior using controlled and incentivized experiments. Leaders are asked to choose public messages from a set that induces a particular leadership style and to send them to subjects matched in groups to play a repeated, finite-horizon public good game. Using a between-subjects design, empowering and directive message sets are studied. Treatments are implemented with and without opportunities for two-way leader follower communication to study the impact of free-form communication. In the absence of opportunities for two-way leader follower communication, leaders assigned to the empowering messages treatment are more effective in mitigating free-riding than leaders assigned to the directive messages treatment. In its presence, contributions in both treatments are higher. The design allows for the study of a more interactive form of directive leadership by combining directive public messages with two-way leader follower communication.