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The more you exploit, the more expedient I will be: A moral disengagement and Chinese traditionality examination of exploitative leadership and employee expediency

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Abstract

Drawing on social cognitive theory, we build a comprehensive understanding of how, why, and when exploitative leadership relates to employee expediency by identifying moral disengagement as one psychological mechanism and Chinese traditionality as one boundary condition. To test our model, we administrated a three-wave survey to collect data from 350 employees in China. The results showed that exploitative leadership was positively related to employee expediency and that moral disengagement mediated this relationship. Additionally, we found that Chinese traditionality buffered the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and moral disengagement as well as the indirect effect of exploitative leadership on employee expediency through moral disengagement. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

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Notes

  1. f2 can be calculated using the R2 and ΔR2 reported in the results of hierarchical regression analysis (i.e., Table 3). Cohen (1969) proposed that the f2 values of .02, .15, and .35 represent small, medium, and large effect sizes, respectively.

  2. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for offering this insight.

  3. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for offering this insight.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71772138) and the Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (No. 2017BGL001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, No.288 Liuhe Road, Hangzhou, 310023, People’s Republic of China

    Ken Cheng

  2. School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, No.1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Limin Guo & Jinlian Luo

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  1. Ken Cheng
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  2. Limin Guo
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Correspondence to Limin Guo.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Limin Guo, upon reasonable request.

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Cheng, K., Guo, L. & Luo, J. The more you exploit, the more expedient I will be: A moral disengagement and Chinese traditionality examination of exploitative leadership and employee expediency. Asia Pac J Manag 40, 151–167 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-021-09781-x

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