The Costs of Forgiveness: The Study on the Relationships of Leader Forgiveness, Employee Moral Disengagement with Workplace Deviance

Abstract

Abstract: Most previous studies have shown that leader forgiveness is associated with positive outcomes. Yet, few studies have examined its negative effects. Thus, our study investigates the association between leader forgiveness and employee workplace deviance, and tests the mediating role of employee moral disengagement and the moderating effect of employee empathy. We use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to examine our hypotheses by analyzing a sample of 306 employees and 71 department supervisors. The results show that employee empathy moderates the link between leader forgiveness and employee moral disengagement. When employee empathy is low, there is a positive relationship between leader forgiveness and employee moral disengagement, but a non-significant link when employee empathy is high. Furthermore, the indirect effect of leader forgiveness on employee workplace deviance via moral disengagement is significant when employee empathy is low, whereas the indirect effect is not significant when employee empathy is high.

Key words: leader forgiveness, moral disengagement, workplace deviance, empathy

Zhang Junwei, Zhang Yajun, Yin Changqin, Lu Lu, Zhu Qiquan. The Costs of Forgiveness: The Study on the Relationships of Leader Forgiveness, Employee Moral Disengagement with Workplace Deviance[J]. Management Review, 2023, 35(2): 228-236.

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