Digital leadership and employee megaphoning: A dual-path mediation model of communal and exchange relational norms in Vietnam

Abstract

This study investigates the mechanisms through which digital leadership influences employees’ voluntary external communication (or megaphoning). Anchored in Social Exchange Theory (SET) and supplemented by complementary organizational behavior theories, it proposes and tests the mediating role of communal and exchange norms in the relationship between digital leadership and both positive and negative employee megaphoning. Drawing on survey data from 563 office employees in Vietnam, the model was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that while digital leadership significantly fosters both communal and exchange norms, only communal norms emerged as a powerful mediator. It partially mediated the relationship between digital leadership and positive megaphoning and fully mediated the relationship with negative megaphoning. In contrast, the exchange norms did not have a significant effect on either form of megaphoning. These findings indicate that the influence of digital leadership on employee advocacy is primarily indirect, channeled through the cultivation of a caring, supportive relationship. This research contributes to digital leadership theory by linking it to the critical outcome of external employee communication and offers a nuanced application of SET in a non-Western context. Practically, it suggests that managers must prioritize building communal bonds over purely transactional relationships to effectively cultivate brand ambassadors.