The Dual Moderating Effects of Moral Emotion and Ethical Leadership: The Mechanism Underlying the Relationship between Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior and Deviant Behavior

Abstract

Abstract: Through conducting three rounds of questionnaires to 171 employees of a state-owned enterprise in southwest China, this study examines the impact of unethical pro-organizational behavior on workplace deviance, and investigates the mediating psychological mechanisms of moral disengagement and the boundary conditions of guilt and ethical leadership. The results show that employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior positively influences their workplace deviant behavior via moral disengagement. Moreover, employees’ guilt positively moderates the relationship between unethical pro-organizational behavior and moral disengagement while ethical leadership negatively moderates the relationship between employee moral disengagement and deviant behavior. For the indirect relationship between unethical pro-organizational behavior and deviant behavior through moral disengagement, guilt positively moderates this relationship, but ethical leadership negatively moderates it. This study explains the impact of unethical pro-organizational behavior on employees’ moral cognition and other unethical behavior, enriching the theoretical study on the consequences of unethical pro-organizational behavior as well as the boundary conditions.

Key words: unethical pro-organizational behavior, workplace deviant behavior, moral disengagement, guilt, ethical leadership

Wang Lei, Lin Wenchen, Wang Xin. The Dual Moderating Effects of Moral Emotion and Ethical Leadership: The Mechanism Underlying the Relationship between Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior and Deviant Behavior[J]. Management Review, 2026, 38(8): 228-238.

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