Stealth innovation: The dance of paradoxical leadership behavior, leader trustworthiness, and psychological safety in fueling employee bootlegging behavior

Abstract

Bootlegging behavior is an innovation activity that an individual privately engages in and that has the contradictory characteristics of deviant behavior and positive purpose. Drawing on social learning theory, the authors examine the influence of paradoxical leadership behavior on employee bootlegging behavior through two studies. Study 1 reveals that psychological safety mediates the positive effect of paradoxical leadership behavior on employee bootlegging behavior. Study 2 replicates the mediating role of psychological safety in the relationship between paradoxical leadership behavior and bootlegging behavior. Furthermore, the results of Study 2 show that leader trustworthiness moderates the effect of paradoxical leadership behavior on psychological safety, and the indirect effect of paradoxical leadership behavior on employee bootlegging behavior through psychological safety, whereby the two effects are stronger when leader trustworthiness is high. We discuss the implications and limitations of this study.