Impact of relational leadership on employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior: A survey based on tourism companies in four countries.

Zhu Yao,Baogui Xin,Xianchun Zhang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0225706

Abstract

Based on the theory of social construction and self-consistency, this study aims to investigate the mechanism of relational leadership’s role in employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) from the perspective of moral identity and ethical climate. We found that relational leadership negatively correlates with the instrumental ethical climate, positively correlates with caring ethical climate, and exerts no significant impact on the rule ethical climate. Instrumental ethical climate and caring ethical climate mediate the relationship between relational leadership and employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior. In addition, moral identity negatively moderates the relationship between instrumental ethical climate and employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior, and between caring ethical climate and employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior. Furthermore, moral identity positively moderates the relationship between a rule ethical climate and employees’ unethical, pro-organizational behavior.

Highlights

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in corporate-ethics incidents such as Thai tour guides forcing tourists to shop, and Indonesian tour guides insulting tourists
Relational leadership, Instrumental ethical climate (IEC), Caring ethical climate (CEC), Rule ethical climate (REC), moral identity, and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) were derived from employee reports, which could result in common method bias
Based on social construction theory and self-consistency theory, this study investigates how relational leadership affects the ethical climate, which in turn affects employee UPB; it further assesses the boundary conditions of the relationship from the perspective of moral identity

Summary

Introduction

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in corporate-ethics incidents such as Thai tour guides forcing tourists to shop, and Indonesian tour guides insulting tourists. These incidents resulted in serious losses to the enterprises and their stakeholders, but exerted a significant negative impact on the market environment and the healthy development of the broader economy and society. Such unethical behavior often closely correlates with the unethical behavior of employees [1]. Umphress et al characterized this behavior as unethical pro-organizational

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Conclusion