| Ethical Leadership and Unethical Employee Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Moral Justification and Moral Identity |
Received:October 12, 2017 Revised:October 15, 2017 |
Key Words: ethical leadership, unethical employee behavior, moral justification, moral identity |
| Author Name | Affiliation | | Chenjing Gan* | Ningbo University | | Duanxu Wang | Zhejiang University |
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Abstract: |
| Previous studies have elaborated how employees learn to inhibit unethical behaviors through observing and imitating ethical leaders’ behaviors. However, few of these studies have focused on the role of individual cognitive judgment in the process of learning ethical leadership, although Bandura (1977) mentioned that learning cannot take place without awareness of what is being reinforced. Based on social learning theory, this study tries to supplement and enrich research on the social learning process of ethical leadership by exploring the role of employee moral justification as the cognitive mediator between ethical leadership and unethical employee behavior and further investigating employee moral identity as the boundary condition of this indirect relationship. The moderated meditation model was supported by analyzing data collected from 271 employees of 17 firms in China at two points in time separated by approximately 3 weeks. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in this paper. |
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