Toward an exploration of follower's implicit followership theories of Mashhad's large organizations using a qualitative approach

Followership is a developing paradigm in organizational behavior which focuses mainly on followers. The goal of this study is to explore follower’s implicit followership theories (IFTs) which entail an analysis of follower’s views and perception about followership. For this purpose، based on a phenomenological approach، semi-structured interviews with employees of large public and private organizations، in Mashhad were analyzed by exploratory content analysis. A total of 25 categories of implicit theories were detected in 5 prototypes and 5 antiprototypes. Followership prototypes consist of constructive perception of work، job competencies، mighty arm of leader، moral virtues and initiation pattern; five antiprototypes were named as role deviances including destructive behaviors،obedience، incompetency، indifference and blue color. Reflecting on the findings، a 5 dimensional model was identified، with each dimension having its prototypes and anti- prototypes. Results showed that follower''s IFTs differ from leader''s follower''s implicit followership theories.