Not too narrow, not too broad: Linking span of control, leadership behavior, and employee job satisfaction in public organizations
研究了公共组织中管理幅度对领导行为及员工工作满意度的影响，发现中等管理幅度下员工感知到更多领导行为且满意度更高，对组织设计有参考价值。
Abstract How does organizational structure shape the role of leadership? Research emphasizes the negative implications of broad spans of control, but theory and empirical research about the span of control and leadership are sparse. We develop theoretical arguments about the span of control and transformational, transactional, and distributed leadership and argue that employees in units with medium‐sized spans of control observe more leadership and have higher job satisfaction. Furthermore, that span of control can affect leadership behaviors differently. The arguments are tested on multilevel survey data from 393 nursing managers and 1699 nurses in Danish hospitals. We find that employees experience more leadership behavior and higher job satisfaction under medium spans of control compared to narrow and broad spans of control. Consequently, span of control should still be considered an important aspect of organizational design when active leadership behavior and high employee job satisfaction are warranted.