Article in Group & Organization Management · January 014 citations reads 13,031 authors: Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects

Figure 2. Effect of interaction between self-leadership and job autonomy on 
objective performance measure.
 by guest on July 31, 2014
gom.sagepub.com
Downloaded from 

---

406 
Group & Organization Management 39(4)
provides support for the positive influence of self-leadership above and 
beyond the influence of conscientiousness in the Chinese firms studied. 
Employees in these firms who have a greater tendency to engage in self-
leadership strategies receive higher performance ratings from their supervi-
sor and are more satisfied with their job.
The non-significant main effect between self-leadership and objective sales 
performance was contrary to our expectations, as expressed in H1b. In the 
study, objective work performance was measured in terms of the annual pre-
mium of insurance policies sold, a common outcome measure among insur-
ance sales agents. As noted by Campbell (1990), performance constructs can 
vary in terms of their control by the individual. Thus, while sales performance 
is an objective measure, it may not necessarily reflect as high a degree of con-
trol by sales agents as we would have desired. This performance measure may 
also be affected by external factors (e.g., declining economic growth), which 
are beyond the sales agents’ control. In other words, objective performance 
results may be impacted more by external factors than sales agents’ self-leadership 
behaviors. By contrast, the subjective performance may incorporate broader 
aspects of performance that employees are able to control, such as initiative, 
dependability, and quality of work (Arvey & Murphy, 1998). Hence, as we 
found, self-leadership behaviors may be more strongly associated with subjec-
tive performance ratings than with objective job performance.
1
2
3
4
5
6
Job Satisfactio
n
Low
Self-leadership
High Job Autonomy
Low Job Autonomy
High