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Organization Management Journal

Abstract

This study discusses the relationship between social and formal working conditions and employees’ propensity to attribute charisma to their leaders in normative and professional organizations. Several studies have argued that crises, organic structures, and social conditions, such as group and organizational belonging, are positively correlated with charisma, while formal conditions such as rules and routines are negatively correlated with charisma. However, this study hypothesized that employees attribute charisma to their leader if they are provided with conditions that help them succeed in performing their work, and if such conditions can be related directly to their leader, such as rules and routines. Group and organizational belonging are considered to be weaker sources of charisma since they are more ambiguously related to both the work execution and the leader, and may even render the leader superfluous. Hierarchical regression analyses supported this hypothesis. Practical and theoretical implications are provided.

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