Supervisory Downward Influence and Supervisor-Directed Organizational Citizenship Behavior (Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT Downward influence tactics are supervisory actions intended to change the behavior of subordinates. Researchers have identified seven influence tactics commonly used by supervisors; friendliness, bargaining, reason, assertiveness, sanction, higher authority, and coalition. This paper uses Social Exchange Theory to develop a framework for relating different types of influence tactics used by supervisors to supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, the paper argues that the use of soft influence tactics (friendliness, bargaining, and reason) lead to the development of social exchange relationship with the supervisor represented by high quality leader-member exchange. High quality leader-member exchange in turn leads to supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behavior from the employee.