Investigating the factors affecting employees’ deviant behaviors with a focus on the moderating role of tyrannical leadership style

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors associated with employees’ deviant behaviors (organizational commitment, organizational justice, and burnout) with a view to the moderating role of the tyrannical leadership style, and to propose a model clarifying the relationships. Method: The study was a descriptive-correlational research which drew on the survey method and followed developmental-applied purposes. The statistical population included all the 9361 employees of the steel industry production line, southern Iran; out of this number, 596 employees were selected as the sample through stratified random sampling. The necessary information was collected through library resources and field studies, and the data were gathered through interviews and organizational commitment, organizational justice, burnout, employees’ deviant behaviors and tyrannical leadership style questionnaires. In order to analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics (structural equation test, one-sample t-test, and confirmatory factor analysis) were used; the data were analyzed in SPSS and Smart PLS software. Results: The findings confirmed the functioning of the proposed model, revealing the significant relationship of organizational commitment, organizational justice, and burnout to employees’ deviant behavior, given the moderating role of industrial managers’ tyrannical leadership style. Conclusion: Nowadays, deviant behavior is a prevalent problem in most organizations. If organizations devise any plans to anticipate and prevent their employees’ deviant behaviors, they must examine the role of organizational and occupational factors and their dimensions as the outcomes of deviant behaviors.