Does Benevolent Leadership Promote Follower Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior? A Social Identity Perspective

This study uses the social identity perspective to explore the influence of benevolent leadership on followers' unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). We also investigate the mediating role of supervisor identification and the moderating role of moral identity in the relationship between benevolent leadership and the followers' UPB. We used a questionnaire survey to collect followers' data in China at two points in time, resulting in 257 usable followers' responses to test our hypotheses. The results show that benevolent leadership can predict follower UPB through supervisor identification. Moreover, moral identity moderates the relationship between benevolent leadership and follower UPB, as well as that between supervisor identification and follower UPB. Finally, moderated-mediation analysis revealed moral identity moderated the benevolent leadership indirect effect on the follower UPB via supervisor identification. Managers can use the insights in this study to monitor the influence of benevolence on UPB.