The Trickle-Down Effect of Authoritarian Leadership on Unethical Employee Behavior: A Cross-Level Moderated Mediation Model

Authoritarian leadership is of great significance to eastern countries, including China. Meanwhile, unethical employee behavior also exists in all types of social organizations. The relationship between authoritarian leadership and unethical employee behavior is worth studying. Senior leaders (managers) often do not have a direct influence on employees except for through their immediate supervisors. The leadership style of senior leaders also influences the leadership style of their subordinates (employees’ direct supervisors). This paper studies how authoritarian manager leadership trickles down to unethical employee behavior through authoritarian supervisor leadership (through social learning theory and ASA theory) and discusses the moderating effect of leader member exchange (LMX) and an ethical climate. Through a questionnaire survey of 406 pairs of leaders, supervisors, and employees, the research results of the multilevel model show that (1) authoritarian supervisor leadership is positively related to unethical employee behavior, (2) authoritarian supervisor leadership mediates the relationship between authoritarian manager leadership and unethical employee behavior, (3) LMX positively moderates the relationship between authoritarian manager leadership and authoritarian supervisor leadership and moderates the mediating effect of authoritarian supervisor leadership, and (4), that an ethical climate negatively moderates the relationship between authoritarian supervisor leadership and unethical employee behavior and moderates the mediating effect of authoritarian supervisor leadership.