There are also methodological limitations in this body of literature
that need to be overcome in future research. First, in five of the seven
studies, the data were collected from a single source, subordinate
surveys, which render the research findings vulnerable to common
method bias. Second, all of the seven studies employed a cross-
sectional research design, which makes it difficult to draw firm con-
clusions about the causal relationships between PL and subordinate
psychological responses or outcomes. Finally, even though the seven
studies were conducted in divergent contexts (e.g. private firms, work
teams, primary schools), all of them examined PL and its effects at
the dyadic level. This limits our ability to draw conclusions about the
possible effects of PL on outcomes at the level of the organization or
the work unit.
Situational moderators of paternalistic leadership
Since Farh and Cheng’s ( 2000 ) model of PL is embedded in a set of
social/cultural/organizational conditions, the effects of PL on subor-
dinate outcomes are not expected to be uniform across all situations.
Hall and Rosenthal ( 1991 : 447) pointed out that ‘‘If we want to know
how well we are doing in the biological, psychological, and social
sciences, an index that will serve us well is how far we have advanced
in our understanding of the moderator variables of our field.’’ There-
fore, to advance our knowledge ofwhenPL makes a difference in
the workplace, we should examine situational factors as moderators
in PL research. Two situational factors have been studied in the PL
literature: subordinate traditionality and subordinate dependence on
the leader for resources.
Subordinate traditionality
The construct of Chinese traditionality was conceived by Yang in
the 1980s and defined as ‘‘the typical pattern of more or less related
motivational, evaluative, attitudinal and temperamental traits that is
most frequently observed in people in traditional Chinese society and
can still be found in people in contemporary Chinese societies such as
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China’’ (Yang, 2003 : 265). Farh,
Earley, and Lin ( 1997 ) first introduced this construct into organiza-
tional science. They selected five items to measure the degree to which
an individual endorses the hierarchical role relationships specified by
Paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations 181