Trickle-down effect of benevolent leadership on unethical employee behavior: a cross-level moderated mediation model

Rui Jiang · Xinqi Lin

24 citations0/0 files storedLeadership & Organization Development Journal

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Ethics in Business and Education Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Employee Performance and Leadership

Abstract

Purpose Conducting research on the relationship between benevolent leadership and unethical employee behavior can help us find solutions to reduce unethical employee behavior. This paper also discusses how the benevolent manager leadership can be transmitted to the employee's unethical behavior through the benevolent supervisor leadership and the moderating effect of LMX and ethical climate. Design/methodology/approach Through a questionnaire survey of 406 pairs of leaders, supervisor and employees, the authors use data aggregation test, confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics and multilevel model (HLM) to test our hypothesis. Findings (1) Manager supervisor leadership is negatively related to unethical employee behavior, (2) benevolent supervisor leadership mediates the relationship between benevolent manager leadership and unethical employee behavior, (3) LMX positively moderates the relationship between benevolent manager leadership and benevolent supervisor leadership and moderates the mediating effect of benevolent supervisor leadership, and (4) ethical climate positively moderates the relationship between benevolent supervisor leadership and unethical employee behavior and moderates the mediating effect of benevolent supervisor leadership. Originality/value First, based on previous studies, this study further proves that benevolent leadership is a popular positive leadership among the three dimensions of paternalistic leadership that extends its influence to unethical employee behavior. Second, the study traces the source of the benevolent leadership of employees' supervisors and reveals the action mechanism of how benevolent manager leadership affects unethical employee behavior (trickle-down effect). LMX and the ethical climate provide the organizational context of the trickle-down effect and the occurrence of unethical employee behavior.

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References

1995Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective 1987THE PEOPLE MAKE THE PLACE 2000Development of a measure of workplace deviance.1988The Organizational Bases of Ethical Work Climates 2010Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work.2011A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents and Consequences of Leader-Member Exchange 2008How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model 2008Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: A study of antecedents and outcomes.

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