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Congruent, paradoxical leadership practices: the key to the recurring discretionary effort of African millennials
Discretionary effort is a sought-after but elusive occurrence in organisations across Africa. Discretionary effort is defined as the voluntary extra working time an employee dedicates to their role, going above and beyond what is expected of them, and working harder or faster than necessary (Sharafi...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English |
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Graduate School of Business (GSB)
2026
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| Summary: | Discretionary effort is a sought-after but elusive occurrence in organisations across Africa. Discretionary effort is defined as the voluntary extra working time an employee dedicates to their role, going above and beyond what is expected of them, and working harder or faster than necessary (Sharafizad & Redmond, 2020). Although discretionary effort provides a distinct advantage to organisations through enhanced innovation, increasing productivity, and a positive work environment (Fuller & Shikaloff, 2017), African millennials tend to withhold discretionary effort. This study aimed to uncover the decision-making mechanism, including the specific leadership practices that could effectively influence the decisions of African millennials to offer their discretionary effort. This study, conducted in a pan-African financial services organisation, employed grounded theory methodology founded in a critical realist ontology and a constructivist epistemology to identify the key entities that generated the theory. This study presents a theory that describes the causal mechanism, based on the five-stage consumer decision theory, to explain how leaders influence the decision of African millennials to offer their recurring discretionary effort. The Congruent Paradoxical Leadership Theory (CPLT) illustrates how leaders, through congruent and paradoxical leadership practices, can influence the decision-making process of African millennials, leading to the recognition of a trust relationship with the leader and the decision to offer their recurring discretionary effort. The theory developed in this study offers a practical and plausible description of the causal mechanism underlying the discretionary effort of African millennials. This study contributes to discretionary effort theory by identifying a leadership mechanism, emphasising the influence of congruent, paradoxical leadership practices on the decision of African millennials to offer their recurring discretionary effort. |
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