The trickle-down effect of responsible leadership on unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating role of leader-follower value congruence

By K. Cheng, Feng Wei, Yinghui Lin. Journal of business research, 2019

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This study aims to explore how and when responsible leadership flows down the organizational hierarchy to reduce unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that high-level leader responsible leadership restrains UPB through low-level leader responsible leadership and that leader-follower value congruence moderates the trickle-down effect of responsible leadership on UPB. Based on the multiphase and multilevel data from 120 sales team supervisors and 426 insurance salespeople in China, we found that low-level leader responsible leadership mediated the impact of high-level leader responsible leadership on UPB. Moreover, high- and low-level leader value congruence significantly moderated the relationship between high- and low-level leader responsible leadership as well as the indirect effect of low-level leader responsible leadership. Similarly, low-level leader-employee value congruence moderated the relationship between low-level leader responsible leadership and UPB as well as the indirect effect of low-level leader responsible leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Subfields: Information Systems and Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/02d5d375265b64879f5d644e8740c3e8e324d096