Abstract
Unethical pro-organizational behaviors (UPB) are unethical, but prosocially-motivated, acts intended to benefit one’s organization. This study examines the extent to which employees are willing to perform UPB to benefit a liked leader. Based on social exchange theory, we hypothesized that LMX would mediate the association of interpersonal justice with UPB willingness. Moral identity and positive reciprocity beliefs were examined as moderators. Higher LMX was significantly and positively related to UPB willingness, and the indirect effect of interpersonal justice on UPB via LMX was significant and positive. These findings suggest that LMX and interpersonal justice could have a previously-unexplored dark side. Moral identity had a negative direct relationship with UPB, but it did not moderate the relationship of LMX with UPB. Thus, LMX facilitates UPB willingness even when employees are high in moral identity. LMX is associated with many positive outcomes, but our results show that high LMX may also increase willingness to perform unethical behaviors to benefit one’s leader. These results contribute to the literature by identifying a potential negative outcome associated with high LMX.
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Notes
An additional moderation on the relationship between interpersonal justice and LMX was also proposed and examined, involving the interaction between interpersonal justice and leader-member exchange-social comparison (LMXSC; Vidyarthi et al. 2010), such that higher levels of LMXSC might strengthen the relationship between justice and LMX. Results did not support the hypothesis, and in fact revealed a significant interaction in the negative direction. However, multicollinearity of the predictors was likely an issue, with Tolerance scores for uncentered predictors failing to meet the traditional .10 cutoff, and a significant correlation between justice and LMXSC of r = .32. Thus, observed results were likely not substantive, and the LMXSC variable was removed from the model..
All additional moderation analyses positioning individual LMX dimensions as predictors were nonsignificant, with unstandardized coefficients ranging from − 0.01 (LMX Loyalty-Moral ID, p = 0.78) to 0.10 (LMX Loyalty-PRB, p = 0.05).
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Ekin Pellegrini, John Meriac, Bettina Casad, and Ellen Herrmann for their helpful inputs on this research. Partial funding for this study was provided by the University of Missouri – St. Louis Department of Psychological Sciences’ graduate research funding program.
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This study was funded, in part, by the University of Missouri – St. Louis Department of Psychological Sciences graduate funding program.
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Bryant, W., Merritt, S.M. Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior and Positive Leader–Employee Relationships. J Bus Ethics 168, 777–793 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04211-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04211-x