Subordinate imitation of supervision behavior: The role of supervisor power and subordinate self-esteem

Following Social Learning Theory, it was hypothesized that subordinate perceptions of their supervisor's reward, coercive, and expert power should relate to the degree of modeling for subordinates high in self-esteem (SE), but not for subordinates low in SE. Correspondingly, perceptions of supervisor's referent power should relate to modeling for those low in SE, but not those high in SE. Respondents were 66 department heads and their immediate supervisors, the branch managers, from an Israeli banking organization. Manager-department head similarity in self-described leadership behavior was used as the index of modeling. The over-all pattern of results largely supported the applicability of Social Learning Theory to organizational modeling.