In March 2020, the COVID-19 virus turned into a pandemic that hit organizations globally. This pandemic qualifies as an exogenous shock. Based on the threat-rigidity hypothesis, we hypothesize that this shock led to an increase in directive leadership behavior. We also argue that this relationship depends on the magnitude of the crisis and on well-learned responses of managers. In our empirical analysis we employ a differences-in-differences design with treatment intensity and focus on the period of the first lockdown, March until June 2020. Using a dataset covering monthly data for almost 27,000 managers across 48 countries and 32 sectors for January 2019 to December 2020, we find support for the threat-rigidity hypothesis. During the first lockdown, directive leadership increased significantly. We also find that this relationship is moderated by COVID-19 deaths per country, the sectoral working from home potential, and the organizational level of management. Our findings provide new evidence how large exogenous shocks like COVID-19 can impact leadership behavior.

中文翻译：

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震惊世界各地管理者的大流行：COVID-19 危机对领导行为的影响


2020 年 3 月，COVID-19 病毒演变成一场大流行，袭击了全球组织。这次大流行可以说是一次外源性冲击。基于威胁刚性假说，我们假设这种冲击导致了指导性领导行为的增加。我们还认为，这种关系取决于危机的严重程度以及管理者的经验丰富的应对措施。在我们的实证分析中，我们采用了处理强度的双重差分设计，并重点关注第一次封锁期间，即 2020 年 3 月至 6 月。使用的数据集涵盖 48 个国家和 32 个行业的近 27,000 名管理人员 2019 年 1 月的月度数据到 2020 年 12 月，我们找到了对威胁刚性假设的支持。在第一次封锁期间，指导性领导力显着增加。我们还发现，这种关系受到每个国家/地区的 COVID-19 死亡人数、部门在家工作潜力以及组织管理水平的影响。我们的研究结果提供了新的证据，证明像 COVID-19 这样的巨大外源冲击会如何影响领导行为。