Recent research has uncovered the dark side of creativity by finding that creative individuals are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. However, we argue that not all creative individuals make trouble. Using moral self-regulation theory as our overarching theoretical framework, we examine individuals’ moral identity as a boundary condition and moral disengagement as a mediating mechanism to explain when and how individual creativity is associated with workplace deviant behavior. We conducted two field studies using multi-source data to test our (...) hypotheses. In Study 1, the results indicated that creativity positively predicted moral disengagement for those low in moral identity. In Study 2 with multi-wave data, we replicated the finding that moral identity moderated the effect of creativity on moral disengagement in Study 1 and further revealed that moral disengagement mediated the interactive effects of creativity and moral identity on workplace deviant behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In the expanding field of ethical leadership research, little attention has been paid to the association between ethical leaders’ ethical characteristics and perceived ethical leadership, and, more importantly, the potential influence of ethical leadership on followers’ ethical characteristics. In this study, we tested a theoretical model based upon social cognitive theory to examine leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership, and follower moral identity and moral attentiveness as outcomes of ethical leadership. Based upon data from (...) 89 leaders and 460 followers in China, collected at two points in time, we found that leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness are associated with follower’s perceptions of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is, in turn, associated with their followers’ moral identity and moral attentiveness. We found furthermore that ethical leadership mediates the effect of leaders’ moral identity on followers’ moral identity, but not the effect of leaders’ moral attentiveness on followers’ moral attentiveness. We discuss the findings, theoretical contributions, practical implications, and future research. (shrink)

Workplace procedural justice is an important motivator for employee work attitude and performance. This research examines how procedural justice affects employee engagement. We developed three propositions. First, based on the group engagement model, we hypothesized that procedural justice enhances employee engagement through employee organizational identification. Second, employees with stronger moral identity centrality are more likely to be engaged in their jobs. Third, procedural justice compensates for the effect of moral identity centrality on employee engagement. Specifically, when procedural justice is higher, (...) employee moral identity centrality plays a less significant role in employee engagement; whilst when procedural justice is lower, the effect of moral identity centrality on employee engagement is stronger. Research findings based on an employee survey in a leading financial service organization provide support for the above propositions. (shrink)

The importance of ethical leadership in organizations has been increasingly recognized, especially as a shield against unethical employee behaviors and corporate misconducts. Ethical leadership has been theorized to include two aspects: “moral person” and “moral manager.” This conceptualization resonates well with Chinese teachings of Confucius on leadership and management—namely xiuji and anren. Based on the theoretical framework of ethical leadership, we develop and validate a new ethical leadership measure. Through qualitative studies and five quantitative studies, we establish the reliability and (...) convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities of the ELM in a Chinese context. In addition, using a US sample, we find that the ELM has partial measurement invariance across Chinese and American contexts. (shrink)

Many previous studies have documented the detrimental effects of social loafing on others (_inter_personal impacts) at the between-person level. However, social loafing may carry underappreciated _intra_personal functional effects at the within-person level. Our research develops a novel theoretical framework to investigate _when_ and _how_ engaging in social loafing enhances one’s job performance. Drawing on the effort-recovery model and moral cleansing theory, we propose that social loafing may improve subsequent job performance by enhancing recovery and guilt. Specifically, we argue that among (...) employees who experience higher job demands or have higher moral identity, social loafing in the morning enhances their job performance in the afternoon by facilitating recovery or guilt in the morning. Two-wave daily data collected across ten consecutive workdays using the experience sampling method (ESM) supports this model. We discuss how this research identifies a functional basis for social loafing and provides implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Various studies have recognized the importance of humility as a foundational aspect of virtuous leadership and have revealed the beneficial effects of leader humility on employee moral attitudes and behaviors. However, these findings may overestimate the benefits of leader humility and overlook its potential costs. Integrating person–supervisor fit theory and balance theory with the humility literature, we employ a dyadic approach to consider supervisor and employee humility simultaneously. We investigate whether and how the congruence of supervisor and employee humility influences (...) employee citizenship and deviance behaviors. We conducted a multilevel, multiphase, and multisource field study to test our hypotheses. The results of cross-level polynomial regression analyses revealed that when supervisors and employees were incongruent in humility, employees experienced higher levels of negative affect toward supervisors. Also, compared to those in low–low congruent dyads, employee negative affect toward supervisors was lower in high–high congruent dyads. The results further revealed asymmetric incongruence effects: employees experienced the highest levels of negative affect toward supervisors when their own humility was lower than their supervisors’. In addition, we found that employee negative affect toward supervisors mediated the impacts of supervisor–employee congruence in humility on employee organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. (shrink)

Research shows that the effects of creative personality on moral disengagement and unethical behaviors are mixed. To reconcile the disparate findings, we draw on interdependence theory to unravel how and when creative personality is related to moral disengagement through countervailing pathways. Specifically, we propose competitive motivation and prosocial motivation as two distinct mechanisms that explain the double-edged effects of creative personality on moral disengagement and subsequent unethical behaviors. Furthermore, we hypothesize a cross-level moderating effect of competitive climate on the relationships (...) between competitive/prosocial motivation and moral disengagement. Results based on three-wave data from 753 employees showed that creative personality increased moral disengagement and subsequent unethical behaviors through competitive motivation but decreased moral disengagement and subsequent unethical behaviors through prosocial motivation. In addition, competitive climate weakened the negative relationship between prosocial motivation and moral disengagement and the negative indirect relationship between creative personality and unethical behaviors via prosocial motivation and moral disengagement. (shrink)

Drawing on implicit leadership theory and the mindfulness literature, we propose that perceived authentic leadership mediates the relationship between follower mindfulness and follower well-being. Leader mindfulness plays a moderating role in this process. We validated these hypotheses with the two-wave data from 56 leaders and 275 followers in two private enterprises located in China. We used Mplus 8.0 to test our hypotheses. Consistent with our hypotheses, the results showed that perceived authentic leadership mediated the positive relationship between follower mindfulness and (...) follower well-being. Higher leader mindfulness enhanced the effect of follower mindfulness on perceived authentic leadership, and also strengthened the indirect effect of follower mindfulness on follower well-being via perceived authentic leadership. The theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed in the light of these findings. (shrink)