leadership and leaders. Leaders, however, cannot be properly defined without also identifying a group of willing followers (Hollander 1978). Despite being complementary concepts, it has been estimated that thousands of leadership publications are produced annually, while followership garners little mention (Brown 2003; Chaleff 2003; Collinson 2006). An underlying assumption of much of this research is that leadership is something done to others (Goffee and Jones 2006) and that followers are viewed as an indistinguishable group falling subject to the leader’s wishes (Collinson 2006).
The disparity holds in the supply chain management related disciplines. Supply chain leaders have been described frequently (Bowersox and Closs 1996; Burnson 2003; Fawcett and Magnan 2004; Lambert, Stock, and Ellram 1998), with supply chain leadership considered an important precondition of supply chain management success (Bowersox 1995). A recent published analysis found that supply chain leaders experience growth in market capitalization up to 26% higher than non-leaders (Byrne 2004). This statistic confirms leadership has a beneficial effect – on the leader’s results! Supply chain followership, on the other hand, has not been described in the literature.
Supply chains are defined as consisting of a supply chain leader and two or more other members directly linked by one or more upstream and downstream flow of products, services, finances, and information with the goal of providing mutual performance benefit for all supply chain participants, not just the leader (Mentzer 2001). Supply chain performance is a holistic concept requiring the identification of end-to-end goals, measures and rewards (Brewer and Speh 2000). Contributions from all supply
chain members are needed to create optimal supply chain-wide performance. At the firm level, it has been argued that up to 80% of organizational success is the result of the contributions of followers (Kelley 1992), because followers always outnumber leaders by a significant margin (Dixon and Westbrook 2003). We believe the conclusion is valid in supply chains also. The lack of research documenting the contributions of supply chain followers represents a significant unexplored gap worthy of attention.
The intention of this research is to provide a foundation for the study of supply chain followership. Two research questions guide this investigation. First, how should followership be defined in the inter-organizational context of supply chains? The concept of supply chain followership is developed to identify the defining characteristics of followership and produce a definition supporting the current and future research efforts. Second, how should supply chain followership be measured? To answer this question, we present a summary of the steps taken to create a valid and reliable scale of supply chain followership that researchers can use in the future. Finally, we introduce and test a model that hypothesizes how followership contributes to supply chain performance LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUALIZATION
Leadership has been considered the single most important factor in the success or failure of institutions (Bass 1990; Day and Lord 1988) and has been described as a strategic source of competitive advantage (Waldman et al. 2001). Four elements, synthesized from the many available definitions (Bass 1990; Yukl 2001), are used to describe leadership: influence, identifiability, vision, and relationship. Influence may flow from authority (Janda 1960) or may occur outside a source of power (Jacobs 1970). The leader should be distinguishable from followers, or identifiable, through their
behaviors and greater capacity for influence (Shamir 1999). Leaders identify a need for change, often expressed through a vision of the future (Richards and Engle 1986; Schein 1992). Finally, leaders and followers create a mutually-defined relationship built on shared goals, commitment, and dual influence (Hogg, Martin, and Weeden 2003; Kouzes and Posner 2004). Research has begun to explore this relational process of leadership by incorporating followers into a holistic transformational concept (Marion and Uhl-Bien 2001). The literature review below summarizes the paradigm of transformational leadership and followership, defining characteristics of each in a supply chain context, and culminating with the introduction of a conceptual model that portrays the relationships among supply chain leadership, followership, and performance.
A New View of Leadership
Transformational leadership theory has gained prominence (Bass 1999; Hunt 1999; Yukl 2001) and considers the leader and followers as existing in a mutually reinforcing relationship. This type of leader understands that followers have their own needs and wishes beyond the goals of the organization (Bass et al. 1987), providing followers a significant opportunity for influence (Grundstien-Amado 1999). The objective of the transformational leader is to motivate followers – rather than attempting to control them – to look beyond their own individual needs by focusing on broader goals that will benefit the organization (Perry 2000).
Transformational leadership has been juxtaposed with transactional leadership on a continuum of leadership behaviors (Burns 1978). Transformational leaders attempt to raise the consciousness of followers to see greater possibilities in the future.
followers an independent event to be optimized. Transactional leaders are described by Hollander’s (1978) social exchange theory. In this view, leaders and followers exist within a series of give-and-take exchanges (Bass 1985). Both the leader and followers have needs to be met by the relationship. Leaders want tasks to be accomplished. Followers want to be adequately compensated for their work. Leaders provide an incentive for task accomplishment, and followers trade their effort to obtain a reward (e.g., wages) or avoid a punishment for falling short of the goal (e.g., a reprimand).
Under transformational leadership theory, leaders are found to exhibit five fundamental behaviors: inspiration, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, contingent reward, and management-by-exception (Avolio and Bass 2004; Avolio, Bass, and Jung 1995; Bass 1997; Hater and Bass 1988; Howell and Avolio 1993; Waldman, Bass, and Yammarino 1990). Of the five, transformational leaders demonstrate inspiration, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration more frequently than transactional leaders. Inspiration is related to the creation of a vision of an improved future (Podsakoff et al. 1990), and is particularly motivating when articulated in terms that reflect shared values and goals established between leader and followers. Intellectual stimulation is found when the leader asks followers to utilize their creativity to find better solutions to current problems (Avolio, Bass, and Jung 1999). Individualized consideration occurs as the leader pays attention to the unique skills and developmental needs of individual followers (Hater and Bass 1988). Contingent reward and management-by-exception have been found in both transactional and transformational leaders (Bass and Avolio 1993). Because they do not differentiate between leadership styles, these behaviors are not considered further in this research.