Rui Jiang, Qi Lin Xin
Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing, China.
School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 6;11:550082. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.550082. eCollection 2020.
Authoritarian leadership is of great significance to eastern countries, including China. Meanwhile, unethical employee behavior also exists in all types of social organizations. The relationship between authoritarian leadership and unethical employee behavior is worth studying. Senior leaders (managers) often do not have a direct influence on employees except for through their immediate supervisors. The leadership style of senior leaders also influences the leadership style of their subordinates (employees' direct supervisors). This paper studies how authoritarian manager leadership trickles down to unethical employee behavior through authoritarian supervisor leadership (through social learning theory and ASA theory) and discusses the moderating effect of leader member exchange (LMX) and an ethical climate. Through a questionnaire survey of 406 pairs of leaders, supervisors, and employees, the research results of the multilevel model show that (1) authoritarian supervisor leadership is positively related to unethical employee behavior, (2) authoritarian supervisor leadership mediates the relationship between authoritarian manager leadership and unethical employee behavior, (3) LMX positively moderates the relationship between authoritarian manager leadership and authoritarian supervisor leadership and moderates the mediating effect of authoritarian supervisor leadership, and (4), that an ethical climate negatively moderates the relationship between authoritarian supervisor leadership and unethical employee behavior and moderates the mediating effect of authoritarian supervisor leadership.
专制型领导对包括中国在内的东方国家具有重要意义。同时，不道德的员工行为也存在于各类社会组织中。专制型领导与不道德的员工行为之间的关系值得研究。高层领导者（管理者）通常除了通过直属上级外，对员工没有直接影响。高层领导者的领导风格也会影响其下属（员工的直接上级）的领导风格。本文研究专制型管理者领导如何通过专制型上级领导（通过社会学习理论和ASA理论）向下传递至不道德的员工行为，并探讨领导成员交换（LMX）和道德氛围的调节作用。通过对406对领导者、上级和员工进行问卷调查，多层次模型的研究结果表明：（1）专制型上级领导与不道德的员工行为呈正相关；（2）专制型上级领导在专制型管理者领导与不道德的员工行为之间起中介作用；（3）LMX正向调节专制型管理者领导与专制型上级领导之间的关系，并调节专制型上级领导的中介作用；（4）道德氛围负向调节专制型上级领导与不道德的员工行为之间的关系，并调节专制型上级领导的中介作用。
