Exemplifying Procedural Justice while Strengthening Organizational Identification: The Complex Relationship between Identity Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) aims at advantaging the organization while transgressing relevant laws or widely held norms of ethical conduct. Across three studies (Study 1 N = 138; Study 2 N = 413; Study 3 N = 139), the paper examines whether identity leadership plays as an antecedent of employees’ UPB intention based on two simultaneous processes: one process related to identity leaders being perceived as exemplary group members, who model and inspire given standards of behavior as a function of the procedural justice employees experience within their workgroup; the other process related to identity leaders strengthening employees’ organizational identification. The obtained results provided consistent evidence that identity leadership is associated directly with employees’ UPB intention by interacting negatively with procedural justice and that, at the same time, it is associated with it indirectly, through the mediation of organizational identification. Discussion focuses on the complexity of both UPB, where an ethical and a pro-organizational dimensions are intertwined, and identity leadership, whose contents are conditional on the meanings employees associate with their group membership.