This study explores the psychological mechanism underlying and the boundary conditions affecting the relationship between managers’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and subordinates’ willingness to engage in UPB. Drawing upon social learning and social cognitive theories, employee moral disengagement was predicted to mediate the relationship between managers’ UPB and employees’ UPB willingness; in addition, the moderating roles of both leader–member exchange and ethical relativism were investigated within this relationship. The results, based on 29 managers and 200 subordinates in Vietnam, supported the proposed mediation model. The findings further indicated that leader–member exchange augmented the positive relationship between managers’ UPB and employee moral disengagement, whereas employee ethical relativism weakened the positive relationship between moral disengagement and employees’ UPB willingness. By elucidating the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions, our findings offer an empirical basis for considering managers’ UPB as a critical antecedent to employees’ willingness to engage in UPB and also inform effective intervention approaches for organizations to constrain UPB.

本研究探讨了影响经理人不道德的组织前行为与下属参与UPB意愿之间关系的心理机制和边界条件。借助社会学习和社会认知理论，可以预测员工道德上的脱节可以调解经理人的UPB与员工的UPB意愿之间的关系。此外，在这种关系中还研究了领导者-成员交流和伦理相对主义的调节作用。该结果基于越南的29名管理人员和200名下属的支持，支持了提议的调解模型。调查结果还表明，领导者与成员之间的交流增强了经理人的UPB与员工道德失范之间的积极关系，员工道德相对主义削弱了道德投入与员工UPB意愿之间的积极关系。通过阐明潜在的机制和边界条件，我们的发现为将经理人的UPB视为员工参与UPB意愿的关键先决条件提供了经验基础，同时也为组织约束UPB提供了有效的干预方法。