Passive leadership and online interaction: The mediating effects of job autonomy and employee resilience

With the prevalence of the Internet and mobile devices, news organizations must adapt themselves to the trend of digitalization. Social media engagement editors emerge as a new role crucial for the survival of news organizations. Engagement editors are tasked to internally facilitate the functions of marketing, content production, and data analysis. They also assume the role of “boundary spanner” for a news organization, managing online community and dealing with online audiences and their frequent toxic and aggressive behaviors. That is, engagement editors are easier than other workers to be affected by emotional stress, and thus reduce job performance. According to conservation of resource theory (COR), leadership and job autonomy both have impacts on personal resources. This research attempts to investigate whether a particular style of leadership (i.e., passive leadership) would negatively affect the engagement editors' performance (i.e., interaction with online fans). Furthermore, how the negativity would be ameliorated by job autonomy and employee resilience. The management of engagement editors has not yet been a focus of academic studies; researchers rarely approach engagement editors from the perspective of COR. This study attempts to remedy these theoretical and practical shortcomings. We surveyed 200 news media engagement editors and used the smart PLS 3 to analyze the data. This research provides useful implication for the management of engagement editors.