Leader charisma influences unethical prosupervisor behavior via leadership identification and organizational identification

Charismatic leadership has a powerful influence on employee attitudes and actions. We proposed a moderated mediation model to examine the predictive effect of leader charisma on followers’ unethical prosupervisor behavior via leadership identification (mediator) and organizational identification (moderator). We conducted a regression analysis of surveys completed by 515 employees of small- and medium-sized enterprises. The findings supported the predictive effect of leader charisma on leadership identification, and of leadership identification positively on unethical prosupervisor behavior. Leader charisma also had a positive influence on unethical prosupervisor behavior. In addition, leadership identification mediated the relationship between leader charisma and unethical prosupervisor behavior. Organizational identification moderated the relationship between leadership identification and unethical prosupervisor behavior, and also positively moderated the indirect predictive effect of leader charisma on unethical prosupervisor behavior through leadership identification. This study enriches understanding of charisma theory and offers both theoretical and practical implications.