Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Mar 2024)
I Treated the Way You Treated Me: The Effect of Leader Hypocrisy on Employees’ Voice Behavior
Abstract
Changlin Han,1,* Xueling Wang,1,* Wenjia Zhang,2,* Mingyue Liu,1,* Yuhuan Xia3,* 1School of Business, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yuhuan Xia, School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Shandong University, No. 72 Binhai Road, Jimo District, Qingdao, Shandong, 266237, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: In recent years, due to the increasingly prominent role of voice behavior in leader decision-making and organizational performance, such behavior has become a central topic for scholars. A majority of studies explore the “uphold” effects of multiple leader behavior toward the voice behavior; nonetheless, our study revealed the “undo” effect --- leader hypocrisy on voice behavior. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we investigated the relationship between leader hypocrisy and voice behavior, examined the mediating effects of cognition-based trust and affect-based trust, and the moderating effect of moral identity.Patients and Methods: We conducted a three-wave survey in a large Chinese corporation to test the hypothesized model. We collected 562 employees to participate in this survey.Results: The results show that leader hypocrisy negatively impacts employees’ cognition-based and affect-based trust, and both types of trust mediate the relationship between leader hypocrisy and voice behavior, respectively. In the meantime, moral identity manifested the negative effect of leader hypocrisy on cognition-based and affect-based trust.Conclusion: Our research not only enriches the related research on leader hypocrisy and voice behavior but also uncovers the underlying mechanism through which leader hypocrisy affects voice behavior and the boundary conditions of this effect. Meanwhile, our research provides a theoretical reference for increasing employees’ voice behavior and promoting the healthy development of enterprises.Keywords: leader hypocrisy, cognition-based trust, affect-based trust, voice behavior, moral identity, social cognitive theory
