# Servant leadership and employee socially responsible behavior: The role of employee psychological entitlement

Nishat Babu, Kenneth de Roeck, Nicolas Raineri

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Nishat Babu, Kenneth de Roeck, Nicolas Raineri. Servant leadership and employee socially responsible behavior: The role of employee psychological entitlement. Personality and Individual Differences, In press, 246, pp.113378. 10.1016/j.paid.2025.113378. hal-05321037

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# Servant leadership and employee socially responsible behavior: The role of employee psychological entitlement

Nishat Babu<sup>a, *, 1</sup>, Kenneth De Roeck<sup>b, 1</sup>, Nicolas Raineri<sup>c, 1</sup>

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

## ARTICLE INFO

### Keywords:

Employee socially responsible behavior

Psychological entitlement

Prosocial motivation

Servant leadership

SRB

## ABSTRACT

This research investigates the interactive effect of servant leadership and employee psychological entitlement on socially responsible behavior (SRB) among employees. Specifically, we build on social learning theory to hypothesize that employee psychological entitlement, an individual trait reflecting an excessive self-oriented focus, undermines the positive effects of servant leadership on employee prosocial motivation, and in turn, SRB. Results from a multi-source field study (N = 240) support our predictions, and highlight the detrimental role of employee psychological entitlement on the ability of organizational leaders to effectively promote the creation of social good through employee behavior.

## 1. Introduction

In recent years, organizations have expanded their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, defined as “actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law” (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001, p. 117). Recognizing the role of individual contributions to CSR, scholars encourage a people-centric approach, emphasizing how organizations and leaders can foster employee engagement in social good creation, thereby strengthening the organization's overall social impact (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Gond et al., 2017; Heucher et al., 2024).

To date, research has pointed to the role of leadership, such as transformational (Robertson & Barling, 2013) and ethical styles (De Roeck & Farooq, 2018), in fostering employee socially responsible behavior (SRB), or discretionary acts that further social good by supporting overall community well-being (Crilly et al., 2008; Glavas et al., 2023). However, less is known about the factors that may hinder employee engagement in SRB (Babu et al., 2020, 2024). In particular, individual differences remain understudied, yet are critical for understanding variation in employee uptake of SRB (Crilly et al., 2008; Gond et al., 2017), as well as their receptiveness to leadership influence in this regard (Fox et al., 2023). Therefore, investigating these individual-level factors is essential for understanding how leaders can effectively

encourage employee contributions to social good.

Accordingly, we first draw on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), to highlight how servant leaders can encourage SRB by inspiring employees to emulate their leader's other-oriented approach, thereby fostering their prosocial motivation, a psychological state reflecting one's desire to expend effort to benefit others (Grant, 2008). Second, we extend this psychological process by examining the moderating role of employee psychological entitlement, a key individual difference reflecting a self-centered and morally-detached orientation (Brummel & Parker, 2015; Ogunfowora et al., 2022). Specifically, drawing on theory and research on psychological entitlement (Harvey & Dasborough, 2015), we propose that servant leadership's strong emphasis on serving and caring for others, conflicts with the self-centred mindset of psychologically entitled employees. As a result, these employees are less likely to become prosocially motivated, and consequently engage in SRB.

We conducted a multi-source field survey study to test our proposed model, depicted in Fig. 1. Our study's contribution is two-fold. First, grounded in social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; Manz & Sims. Jr, 1981), our study contributes to both the SRB and servant leadership literatures by delineating how servant leaders, as credible and attractive role models, foster employee engagement in social good creation (i.e., SRB), through a vicarious learning process that instills prosocial

<footnote><sup>a</sup> Loughborough Business School - Loughborough University, Epinal Way, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup> SKEMA Business School - Université Côte d'Azur, Avenue Willy Brandt, 59777 Euralille, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>c</sup> ICN Business School, Université de Lorraine, CEREFIGE, F-54000 Nancy, France</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author.</footnote>

<footnote>E-mail addresses: n.babu@lboro.ac.uk (N. Babu), kenneth.deroeck@skema.edu (K. De Roeck), nicolas.raineri@icn-artem.com (N. Raineri).</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ All authors contributed equally.</footnote>
motivation in employees (Eva et al., 2019). As such, our study shows how servant leadership can promote positive social change, through its influence on employees' attitudes and behavior. This is particularly noteworthy in light of the argument that individual involvement such as volunteering is “the world's best option to effect real change and address important societal challenges across the globe” (Rodell et al., 2017, pp. 1662–1663).

Second, our research addresses the need to examine how individual dispositions shape employees' receptivity to servant leadership and, in turn, their engagement in advancing social good (Eva et al., 2019; Glavas et al., 2023; Gond et al., 2017). Specifically, our findings suggest that psychological entitlement, “a vexing and contemporary issue for modern organizations that has gone largely unstudied” (Harvey & Dasborough, 2015, p. 464), represents a crucial individual difference that can impede servant leaders' propensity to foster employees' prosocial motivation and resulting SRB, through vicarious learning. In doing so, our study helps to clarify how and when servant leadership can contribute to an organization's societal impact, through its influence on employee behavior (Gond et al., 2017; Heucher et al., 2024).

## 2. Literature review and hypotheses development

### 2.1. Socially responsible behavior

Employee SRB is a form of voluntary prosocial behavior which focuses on devoting time to furthering the well-being of external stakeholders, and thus the social good of the wider community (Babu et al., 2024; Crilly et al., 2008; De Roeck & Farooq, 2018). Examples of SRB include suggesting and implementing ways to improve the organization's social performance, participating in its social responsibility programs, and volunteering in community projects and other charitable and humanitarian causes (e.g., food bank, charity fundraisers, community cleanup).

Prior research has established that an organization's and its leaders' commitment to CSR is instrumental in encouraging employee engagement in SRB, by signaling that these behaviors are valued and encouraged within the organization (De Roeck & Farooq, 2018; Raineri & Paillé, 2016; Robertson & Barling, 2013; Vlachos et al., 2014). In addition, Crilly et al. (2008) point out that individual-level characteristics, such as self-transcendence and self-enhancement values, shape employees' cognitive appraisals of SRB, thereby influencing these

behaviors. However, research focusing on how factors such as leadership and individual differences interact to jointly predict employee SRB is lacking.

Indeed, it is well established in social psychology that behavior results from an interplay between contextual and individual factors, which together determine intention and motivation for a given action (Ajzen, 1991; Grant, 2007). With respect to prosocial behavior, motivation has been recognized as a key mechanism that explains why individuals engage in discretionary acts that benefit others (Grant, 2008; Penner et al., 2005). Yet, little research examines the motivation-based mechanism behind SRB, and more specifically, how leadership interacts with individual traits to influence employees' prosocial motivation and behavior. Thus, extending previous literature, our study aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the psychological processes and individual differences under which servant leadership succeeds or fails to foster employee engagement in SRB.

### 2.2. Servant leadership and SRB

According to Eva et al. (2019), servant leadership is characterized by: (1) a focus on serving others; (2) a personable (i.e., one-to-one) approach to leading and mentoring; and (3) an outward orientation toward improving the well-being of the broader community. Together, these characteristics conceptually set servant leadership apart from other moral-based forms of leadership, such as authentic, transformational and ethical leadership (Eva et al., 2019; Lemoine et al., 2019; Parris & Peachey, 2013; Van Dierendonck, 2011), and contribute to its unique predictive value (Lee et al., 2020).

Specifically, in contrast to other forms of leadership, servant leaders are guided by a deep conviction to serve others and to make a positive difference to the well-being of internal (e.g., employees) and external (e.g., community) stakeholders (Liden et al., 2008). In doing so, the other-orientation of servant leaders, and their advocacy for community involvement, encourages employees to become pro-social catalysts (Brière et al., 2021; Eva et al., 2019). We build on this literature and social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), which emphasizes emulation through observational learning, to explain the vicarious learning process underlying servant leadership's effects on employees' SRB (Manz & Sims. Jr, 1981). That is, servant leaders, who “actively work at changing society for the better” (Parris & Peachey, 2013, p. 390), are likely to inspire and thereby motivate employees to model and internalize this

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1.** Study Two: Unstandardized estimates of the research model.</figcaption></figure>

*Note.* Parameters for the measurement portion and disturbance terms are not presented for the sake of parsimony. Servant leadership, psychological entitlement, and prosocial motivation were self-reported. SRB = socially responsible behavior.

<footnote>*p* < 0.05; **p* < 0.01; ***p* < 0.001.</footnote>
motivation to serve others.

## 2.3. The mediating role of prosocial motivation

Prosocial motivation is a psychological state typified by the desire and drive to benefit others (Bolino & Grant, 2016), and can be nurtured by contextual factors such as leadership behaviors (Bolino & Grant, 2016; Lemoine & Blum, 2021). Servant leadership is inherently prosocially oriented and is therefore uniquely suited to fostering employee prosocial motivation, by transmitting this mindset to followers (Eva et al., 2019). This influence can occur both actively, through personalized interactions with employees, and passively, through repeated exposure to servant leaders' prosocial actions and attitudes (Lemoine & Blum, 2021).

Indeed, in line with the tenets of social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; Manz & Sims. Jr, 1981), we expect that the service and other-regarding orientation that characterizes servant leaders should increase their attractiveness as role models (Liden et al., 2008). This enables servant leaders to cultivate a state of prosocial motivation in employees, by guiding their attention and motivating them to emulate this prosocial orientation (Liden et al., 2014). Moreover, the personable mentoring and leading-by-example approach of servant leaders (Eva et al., 2019) should also help employees better understand the value and positive impact of SRB on wider stakeholders (e.g., the community). This heightened awareness can serve as a key motivational factor in the social learning process, as employees are more likely to internalize and emulate behaviors they perceive as meaningful and beneficial to others (Bandura, 1977; Manz & Sims. Jr, 1981).

Prosocial motivation developed through social interactions with servant leadership is then likely to influence employees' pattern of other-oriented behavior (Grant & Mayer, 2009; Ong et al., 2018). That is, the positive work experiences with, and the example set by servant leaders, lead employees to internalize prosocial values (Eva et al., 2019) and the corresponding desire to benefit external stakeholders (e.g., the community), so that prosocially motivated employees will be more inclined to enact SRB (Glavas et al., 2023; Rodell et al., 2017).

**Hypothesis 1.** Employee prosocial motivation mediates the positive relationship between servant leadership and employee SRB.

## 2.4. The moderating role of psychological entitlement

Psychological entitlement is a dispositional trait defined as “a stable and pervasive sense that one deserves more and is entitled to more than others” (Campbell et al., 2004, p. 31), and is associated with high levels of self-orientation, egocentricity and moral detachment (Brummel & Parker, 2015; Ogunfowora et al., 2022). It is a personality construct with a global influence on people's thoughts, attitudes and behaviors (Harvey & Martinko, 2009), which is at odds with the other-orientation displayed and promoted by servant leadership (Lemoine et al., 2019; Liden et al., 2014).

To date, literature has highlighted the role of psychological entitlement in modifying employee reactions to leadership styles other than servant leadership, such as leader-member exchange (Lee et al., 2019), and abusive leadership (Wheeler et al., 2013). Specifically, research shows that entitled individuals are less likely to reciprocate leaders' positive treatment (Brummel & Parker, 2015; Lee et al., 2019), and more likely to suffer emotional exhaustion from abusive forms of supervision, leading them to abuse coworkers (Wheeler et al., 2013). Such observations can be explained by entitled individuals' self-centeredness and propensity to disregard others' well-being due to a lack of communal values. This, in turn, hinders the development of other-oriented motives in entitled individuals, even when the broader context promotes prosocial values (Brummel & Parker, 2015). Specifically, self-centeredness appears to inhibit elaborate cognitive processing when evaluating social situations, resulting in entitled individuals being “less sensitive to

environmental cues that encourage them to identify the positive impact of prosocial behavior, feel committed to others, and act prosocially” (Zhong et al., 2022, p. 4). Instead, psychological entitlement facilitates the activation of biased and self-serving attributional tendencies, leading to overly detached and self-focused behaviors (Brummel & Parker, 2015; Campbell et al., 2004; Lee et al., 2019).

Accordingly, we argue that psychologically entitled individuals, due to their inflated self-view, are less disposed to recognize servant leaders as role models to emulate. That is, they are less inclined to cognitively process the prosocial cues these leaders convey, as doing so could undermine their sense of self-importance, and conflict with their morally-detached orientation (see Harvey & Martinko, 2009). In this respect, employees with higher levels of entitlement are less likely to engage in vicarious learning, whereas those with lower entitlement are more likely to be receptive to, process, and model the other-orientation of servant leaders.

**Hypothesis 2.** Employee psychological entitlement moderates the positive relationship between servant leadership and employee prosocial motivation, such that the relationship is stronger (weaker) when entitlement is low (high).

Based on hypotheses 1 and 2, we further propose:

**Hypothesis 3.** Employee psychological entitlement moderates the indirect positive relationship between servant leadership and employee SRB through prosocial motivation, such that the relationship is stronger (weaker) when entitlement is low (high).

## 3. Method

After obtaining institutional ethical approval, we used a convenience sampling approach to recruit participants through the research team's personal and professional social networks (e.g., LinkedIn). Previous research has adopted similar approaches to data collection (e.g., Babu et al., 2024; Rivkin et al., 2023), and there is evidence that the reliability and validity of data collected via social networking platforms are comparable to those obtained through more traditional (e.g., on-site) methods (Casler et al., 2013; Grieve et al., 2014).

The research team provided participants with an anonymized survey link that first detailed information on the study, before asking them to indicate their informed consent, after which they were able to access the survey. We asked participants to nominate someone who knew them well (i.e., close colleague or partner) as an external rater. The focal participant completed the first part of the questionnaire, covering demographics, servant leadership, psychological entitlement and prosocial motivation, while the external rater assessed SRB in the second part.

Participants were non-managerial employees based in the UK, working across a variety of sectors, industries and functions, providing us with a diverse working sample (Gleibs, 2017). Of the 255 responses collected, 15 lacked an external rater and were excluded, resulting in a final sample of 240. Participants were 72.5 % female, with an average age of 21.63 years (SD = 7.50), and an average tenure with their supervisor of 12.58 months (SD = 18.30). With respect to educational level, 5.0 % had secondary/high school qualifications and 74.6 % had post-secondary qualifications, while 13.8 % had an undergraduate degree and 6.7 % had a graduate degree.

All measures used a seven-point response scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Psychological entitlement was measured using the nine-item scale by Campbell et al. (2004) (α = 0.88). Sample items are, ‘I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others,’ and ‘I do not necessarily deserve special treatment’ (reverse-scored). For servant leadership, we asked the participants to rate their leader using the seven-item Servant Leadership Scale developed by Liden et al. (2015) (α = 0.87). Sample items are, ‘My leader emphasizes the importance of giving back to the community,’ and ‘My leader puts my best interests ahead of his/her own.’ Prosocial motivation was measured with the four-
item scale from Grant (2008) (α = 0.95). A sample item is, ‘I want to have positive impact on others.’ *Other-ratings of SRB* were provided by the individual nominated by the focal participant, through ratings on a four-item scale adapted from De Roeck and Farooq (2018), which assesses employees’ engagement in the community and civil society (α = 0.91). A sample item includes, ‘[Participant] volunteers in charitable initiatives.’ We controlled for age, gender and tenure, as they are linked to prosocial behavior (Ong et al., 2018).

# 4. Results

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations of the study variables.

## 4.1. Measurement validation

Chi-squared difference tests compared the measurement model's fit to four nested models. As Table 2 depicts, the theoretical model fit the data better ($\chi^2 = 523.45, df = 245, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.92; TLI = 0.91; SRMR = 0.06$), than the nested models, confirming the study variables' convergent and discriminant validity.

## 4.2. Hypothesis testing

We tested our hypotheses using the Latent Moderated Structural (LMS) equations approach in Mplus. As this approach does not provide conventional fit indices, we applied the standard two-step method to assess model fit (Maslowsky et al., 2015). First, we evaluated a null model without the interaction term. Then, we used the log-likelihood ratio test to determine whether the LMS model, which includes the latent interaction, significantly improved fit compared to the null model. Findings show that the null model adequately fit the data ($\chi^2 = 529.91, df = 246, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.92; TLI = 0.91; SRMR = 0.07$), while the LMS model significantly improved fit over the null model (log-likelihood ratio test $D = 5.67, df = 1, p < 0.05$). Thus, the research model with the latent interaction term best fits the data.

Fig. 1 presents LMS equations results, indicating that servant leadership is significantly and positively related to employee prosocial motivation ($b = 0.52, SE = 0.14, p < 0.001$), and SRB ($b = 0.71, SE = 0.21, p < 0.001$). Additionally, prosocial motivation is significantly and positively related to SRB ($b = 0.27, SE = 0.11, p < 0.01$), and there is a significant indirect effect of servant leadership on SRB through prosocial motivation ($b = 0.14, 95 \%$ bootstrap confidence interval [0.02, 0.29], 5000 resamples). Thus, Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Fig. 1 further supports Hypothesis 2, as the interaction between psychological entitlement and servant leadership on prosocial motivation was significant and negative ($b = -0.30, SE = 0.12, p < 0.05$). Simple slope analyses show that servant leadership is positively related to prosocial motivation among employees with low entitlement (one SD below $M: b = 0.81, SE = 0.19, p < 0.001$), but not among those with high entitlement (one SD above $M: b = 0.21, SE = 0.18, p > 0.05$). Fig. 2 illustrates this moderating effect.

Consistent with Hypothesis 3, the indirect effect of servant leadership on SRB through prosocial motivation is significant and positive for employees with low entitlement ($b = 0.22, 95 \%$ bootstrap confidence interval [0.02, 0.50]), but not significant for those with high entitlement ($b = 0.06, 95 \%$ bootstrap confidence interval [−0.08, 0.19]). We plotted this conditional indirect effect in Fig. 3.

# 5. Discussion

## 5.1. Theoretical contributions

Drawing on social learning theory, our research examines the interactive effect of servant leadership and employee psychological entitlement in encouraging SRB, an important behavior ultimately

contributing to more sustainable organizations and society (Crilly et al., 2008; De Roeck and Farooq, 2018; Glavas et al., 2023; Rodell et al., 2017). Our study's contributions are two-fold. First, we highlight the utility of servant leadership in fostering an organization's social impact through its influence – via role modeling and advocacy – on employee SRB. In so doing, we provide empirical support for the conceptualized but overlooked role of prosocial motivation as a key motivation-based mechanism of servant leadership's other-oriented effects on employees (Eva et al., 2019; Lemoine et al., 2024). Indeed, employees' observation of, and desire to, emulate their servant leader's prosocial orientation drives their motivation to engage in SRB. We therefore extend the SRB and servant leadership literatures by providing additional insight into how servant leadership encourages prosociality in employees through a vicarious learning process.

Second, our research brings attention to the interactive role of individual and contextual factors, in explaining SRB. Specifically, we focus on psychological entitlement, often regarded as a pressing yet understudied managerial challenge for modern organizations (Harvey & Dasborough, 2015). Indeed, this personality trait appears to be fundamentally misaligned with servant leadership, and can thus offer important insights into the individual differences that may constrain the efforts of (servant) leaders to foster employee engagement in social good. Namely, our research adds to existing work on psychological entitlement (e.g., Brummel & Parker, 2015; Wheeler et al., 2013), according to which entitled individuals are less likely to attend to moral cues in their environment, even when these cues are actively promoted by the social context. Specifically, our findings contribute to understanding how individual and contextual factors might interact in undermining employee SRB (Babu et al., 2024; Gond et al., 2017), by demonstrating that psychological entitlement precludes servant leaders from encouraging an other-orientation and related behaviors in employees. As highlighted below in our contribution to practice, our research thus helps delineate some of the conditions under which organizations and their leaders can seek to improve the well-being of stakeholders beyond the organization.

## 5.2. Limitations and directions for future research

Although the current study employs external ratings of SRB, which can help minimize common method bias, the variables servant leadership, psychological entitlement, and prosocial motivation were self-reported by employees, and thus may still be subject to common method variance. However, we found support for predicted interaction effects, which cannot be attributable to (i.e., inflated or artificially created by) common method bias (Siemsen et al., 2010). A related limitation of our research design is that it prevents us from drawing conclusions about causality between our variables of interest. Therefore, future research could further reduce method biases and establish causality<fnref n="2" /> (Lee et al., 2020), by adopting experimental and/or longitudinal approaches (e.g., cross-lagged design), which are especially lacking in servant leadership research (Eva et al., 2019).

An additional limitation of our work is the use of a convenience sampling approach and a skewed female sample. Future research could overcome this by adopting a more robust (e.g., probability) sampling method. This approach would ensure a more balanced representation across demographical characteristics (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity), and serve to enhance the generalizability of findings.

Finally, while SRB purports to contribute toward social good, we did not assess its objective impact on external beneficiaries outside the organization, such as whether, and to what extent employee SRB enhances

<footnote n="2">² We provisionally conducted a vignette-based experiment to address the limitation that our study does not test for causality. We manipulated servant leadership to assess its effect on employees' subsequent prosocial motivation and SRB. A brief summary is provided in Appendix A.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 1**

Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations.</caption><thead><tr><th>Variable</th><th>Mean</th><th>SD</th><th>1</th><th>2</th><th>3</th><th>4</th><th>5</th><th>6</th><th>7</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1. Age</td><td>21.63</td><td>7.50</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>2. Gender <sup>a</sup></td><td>1.73</td><td>0.45</td><td>-0.13*</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>3. Supervisor tenure (in months)</td><td>12.58</td><td>18.30</td><td>0.48**</td><td>-0.04</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>4. Psychological entitlement</td><td>3.29</td><td>1.14</td><td>-0.17**</td><td>0.14*</td><td>-0.09</td><td>(0.88)</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>5. Servant leadership</td><td>4.70</td><td>1.19</td><td>0.23***</td><td>-0.18**</td><td>0.17**</td><td>-0.07</td><td>(0.87)</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>6. Prosocial motivation</td><td>5.84</td><td>1.08</td><td>0.14*</td><td>-0.07</td><td>0.12</td><td>-0.10</td><td>0.37***</td><td>(0.95)</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>7. Other-Rating of SRB</td><td>4.29</td><td>1.56</td><td>0.11</td><td>0.08</td><td>0.07</td><td>0.12</td><td>0.31***</td><td>0.26***</td><td>(0.91)</td></tr></tbody></table>

a 1 = Male; 2 = Female. SRB = socially responsible behavior.

* p < 0.05.

** p < 0.01.

*** p < 0.001.

<table><caption>**Table 2**

Confirmatory factor analysis.</caption><thead><tr><th>Model</th><th>χ<sup>2</sup></th><th>df</th><th>Δχ<sup>2</sup></th><th>CFI</th><th>TLI</th><th>SRMR</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>One-factor (all items combined)</td><td>2499.71</td><td>251</td><td>1976.26***</td><td>0.37</td><td>0.31</td><td>0.21</td></tr><tr><td>Two-factor (psychological entitlement and servant leadership combined; prosocial motivation and SRB combined)</td><td>1678.33</td><td>250</td><td>1154.88***</td><td>0.60</td><td>0.56</td><td>0.18</td></tr><tr><td>Three-factor (prosocial motivation and SRB combined)</td><td>1002.64</td><td>248</td><td>479.19***</td><td>0.79</td><td>0.77</td><td>0.11</td></tr><tr><td>Four-factor (measurement model)</td><td>523.45</td><td>245</td><td></td><td>0.92</td><td>0.91</td><td>0.06</td></tr></tbody></table>

SRB = socially responsible behavior.

*** p < 0.001.

actual social good (e.g., performance of a charity). We thus encourage future research to adopt research questions and designs that allow for an objective assessment of the societal impact of employees' SRB, such as quasi-experiments, to more accurately determine its benefits for, and contributions to, society at large.

### 5.3. Practical implications

Our findings suggest that organizations committed to enhancing their societal impact would benefit from investing in servant leadership training and fostering a servant leadership culture (Eva et al., 2019). Specifically, leaders need to be trained to prioritize followers, support their development, and instill service values toward the wider community. Besides training, Eva et al. recommend recruiting prosocial and conscientious individuals to promote a culture of servant leadership.

Importantly, our findings suggest that entitled employees will be less receptive to servant leadership influence toward social good creation. Given the supposedly growing levels of entitlement in the workplace (Brummel & Parker, 2015), we suggest that firstly, organizations focus to attract, recruit and retain individuals with values similar to their own, if they are keen to encourage employees to contribute toward making a positive social impact. However, for entitled individuals already present within the organization, highlighting how employees might personally benefit from engaging in SRB (e.g., skills development, networking,

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** Interaction of servant leadership and employee psychological entitlement on prosocial motivation.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.** Conditional indirect effect of servant leadership on SRB through prosocial motivation, at different levels of employee psychological entitlement.</figcaption></figure>

social recognition) could be useful (Lee et al., 2019). For example, or- ganizations could publicly acknowledge and celebrate volunteers through internal communications, social media or annual events, thus reinforcing the desirability of SRB, even among entitled employees.

Nonetheless, organizations also need to exercise caution in their ef- forts to promote SRB. While it is important to draw employees' attention to these desirable behaviors, it is equally crucial not to mandate them. Indeed, excessive encouragement can lead to “citizenship pressure”, where employees feel forced into doing good (Bolino et al., 2010; Bolino & Klotz, 2015). Research has shown that such pressure has counter- productive consequences, and can be associated with negative outcomes such as job stress, turnover intentions and even unethical behavior (Bolino et al., 2010; Bolino & Klotz, 2015), which is contrary to the ethos of servant leadership and SRB.

## CRediT authorship contribution statement

**Nishat Babu:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Methodology, Conceptualization. **Kenneth De Roeck:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodol- ogy, Conceptualization. **Nicolas Raineri:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Conceptualization.

## Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

## Acknowledgements

The authors thank Laura Gent and George Kerr for their assistance with data collection.

## Appendix A. Experimental pilot study

We tested the causal effect of servant leadership on employee pro- social motivation and SRB with a vignette-based pilot experiment, to provide a provisional test for causality. To do so, we recruited 151 non- managerial UK employees with at least six months of organizational tenure via Prolific Academic, a crowdsourcing platform created for ac- ademic research (Peer et al., 2022). The participants in the sample were 50.3 % female, and their average age was 33.9 years (SD = 11.58).

We randomly assigned participants to a high (N = 76) or a low (N = 75) servant leadership experimental condition, developed on the basis of Liden et al.'s (2015) measure and conceptualization of servant leader- ship. Participants were then asked to complete measures of prosocial motivation (Grant, 2008) and servant leadership (i.e., the manipulation check), before indicating whether they accepted ('Yes'), or declined ('No'), to voluntarily provide 5 minutes of their time to help a charity with ideas about future initiatives to raise money (i.e., an objective measure of SRB).

Participants in the high experimental condition rated their leader as more servant-like (M = 6.33, SD = 0.56), than participants in the low experimental condition (M = 1.84, SD = 0.69; t(149) = 44.02, p < 0.001; d = 0.63), supporting the validity of our manipulation. Results also showed that participants in the high servant leadership condition re- ported significantly higher prosocial motivation (M = 6.08, SD = 0.62), than those in the low servant leadership condition (M = 4.34, SD = 1.53; t(149) = 9.19, p < 0.001; d = 1.17). They were also more willing to engage in SRB by volunteering to spend an extra 5 minutes of their time for a charitable cause (%High = 56.99; %Low = 43.01; χ² = 4.29, p < 0.05). Together, these findings provide preliminary evidence of causality be- tween servant leadership and both employee prosocial motivation and SRB.

## Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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