| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立屏東科技大學 === 企業管理系碩士班 === 94 === Direct-selling has increasingly raised academic attention in the past years. Nevertheless, there is still limited research on the leadership and relationship between different levels of distributors. It is particularly important in understanding the roles of guan-xi types, gender role and the leadership styles of multi-level marketing distributors and how those affect relationship quality and down-line distributors’ organizational commitment to multi-level marketing companies. This study intends to examine: (1). Guan-xi type, up-lines’ gender roles, and their up-lines’ leadership behaviors’ effects on leadership styles. (2). Up-lines’ leadership styles’ effect on relationship quality and organizational commitment with their down-lines. Convenient sampling survey was used to collect data for Taiwanese multi-level marketing companies. For avoiding common method variance, “paired” sample method was adopted. Each of the up-line distributors was paired to three to five of his/her down-line distributors. 74 valid pair samples were collected, including 307 down-lines. Key findings are as followings: (1). Expressive ties with down-lines’ positively affect up-lines’ leadership styles. (2). Up-lines’ gender roles of “feminine” positively affect their own leadership styles. (3). Transactional leadership’s role model is transferable. (4). Up-line’s transformation leadership positively
affects relationship quality between up-lines and down-lines. (5). Up-line’s transformation leadership positively affects affective commitment of down-lines; up-line’s transactional leadership positively affects continuance commitment of down-lines. (6). Relationship quality between up-lines and down-lines positively affect affective commitment of down-lines. (7). Up-line’s leadership style mediates the effect between expressive ties and relationship quality. (8). Up-line’s leadership style mediates the effect between up-line’s up-lines and relationship quality. (9). Up-line’s transactional leadership mediates the effect between expressive ties and affective commitment. Based on the research findings, academic and managerial implications and suggestions are provided.
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