ABSTRACT

Leaders have been thought to play a vital role in influencing employees’ unethical behavior. However, what happens to leaders and followers in the aftermath of unethical conduct has received little attention in the literature. Drawing from the correspondent inference theory, we examine the conditions under which leaders attribute their followers’ unethical behavior to poor moral character and eventually assign them low performance ratings. Through a two-wave research design and data from 290 matched employee–leader dyads, we found that a leader is more likely to infer that a follower who has engaged in unethical behavior is of poor moral character when the leader has a higher moral identity, and the leader will impose lower performance ratings on this follower when the leader prefers lower moral decoupling.

摘要

领导者被认为在影响员工的不道德行为方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，在不道德行为之后发生在领导者和追随者身上的事情在文献中很少受到关注。从对应推理理论中，我们研究了领导者将其追随者的不道德行为归因于不良道德品质并最终赋予他们低绩效评级的条件。通过两波研究设计和来自 290 个匹配的员工-领导二元组的数据，我们发现，当领导者具有更高的道德认同时，领导者更有可能推断出从事不道德行为的追随者的道德品质较差，当领导者更喜欢较低的道德脱钩时，领导者将对这个追随者施加较低的绩效评级。