Subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism: a scale development

Purpose – Drawing from social dominance theories and conceptualizations of paternalism, the purpose of this paper is to define and develop a measure of subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism (SPSP). Design/methodology/approach – The authors assess the validity of the measure using Hinkin’s (1998) scale development steps. Findings – The authors found evidence of the convergent and discriminant validity of the measure of subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism drawing from three different samples. Participants in the study were also able to differentiate a low from a high paternalism condition using the measure of paternalism. Finally, as expected, the interaction between a supervisor’s benevolence and control was significantly associated with subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism. Research limitations/implications – The authors provide evidence for the validity of a measure of subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism while controlling for various status signals represented by demographic variables. Results may have been influenced by common method variance. However, there is no theoretical reason to expect any such interactions. Additionally, as the authors limited the data collection to the USA, the authors caution against generalizing beyond that context. Practical implications – The authors provide validity and reliability evidence for a unidimensional measure that is short and easy to administer in future research to further examine the consequences of perceptions of supervisor paternalism. Social implications – Defining and measuring subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor paternalism is important to society given the potential adverse consequences of these perceptions. Because paternalistic relationships pervade many supervisor-subordinate interactions, both subordinates and supervisors can become more sensitive to the consequences of such interactions by understanding the conditions under which supervisor paternalism manifests itself. Originality/value – Conceptually, in this study, the authors build on prior research and define supervisor paternalism from a social dominance perspective. Empirically, the authors contribute a statistically valid and reliable unidimensional measure.