Leadership empowerment behavior and employee referrals: chain mediation of perceived challenge stress and employee experience

Purpose Internal employees of firms are a reliable source of information for potential job seekers. However, few studies have focused on why internal employees actively recommend their firms. Based on the social exchange theory, this study aims to construct a chain mediation model using perceived challenge stress and employee experience as mediators to explore how leadership empowerment behavior affects employee referrals. Design/methodology/approach Bootstrap repeated sampling analysis was conducted on a sample of 307 employees collected through two-time points. Findings Leadership empowerment behavior is positively related to employee referrals; perceived challenge stress and employee experience mediate the effect of leadership empowerment behavior on employee referrals, respectively; in addition, perceived challenge stress and employee experience play a chain mediating role between leadership empowerment behavior and employee referrals. Originality/value The findings can help provide insight into the drivers of employee referrals and can effectively guide organization reputation management.

目的 企业内部员工是潜在求职者可靠的信息来源。然而，很少有研究关注内部员工积极推荐自己所在企业的原因。基于社会交换理论，本研究旨在构建一个以感知挑战性压力和员工体验为中介的链式中介模型，以探究领导授权行为如何影响员工推荐。 设计/方法/途径 对通过两个时间点收集的307名员工样本进行了自举重复抽样分析。 研究结果 领导授权行为与员工推荐呈正相关；感知挑战性压力和员工体验分别中介了领导授权行为对员工推荐的影响；此外，感知挑战性压力和员工体验在领导授权行为与员工推荐之间起链式中介作用。 创新性/价值 这些研究结果有助于深入了解员工推荐的驱动因素，并能有效指导组织声誉管理。