Leadership Research Summary:
- Based on the normative conflict model, this study proposes a dual-pathway model that isconstituted of organizational identification and normative conflict and examines the double-edged sword effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ constructive deviance. According to the analysis of 449 questionnaires collected from Chinese employees, the results show that ethical leadership can promote employees’ constructive deviance by improving their constructive intention (Organizational identification), and it can weaken employees’ deviance motivation (normative conflict) to prevent their constructive deviance. Moreover, ethical leadership has different effects on different types of constructive deviance. This research further enriches the formation mechanism of constructive deviance and provides practical guidance to exert the effectiveness of constructive deviance in organizational management.
Leadership Research Implications and Findings:
- First, this research examines the double-edged sword effect of ethical leadership on constructive deviance, providing a new idea for previous studies on the impact of ethical leadership on constructive deviance from a positive or negative perspective (Xu and Zhu, 2017; Gao et al., 2019). In recent years, more and more studies focus on the suppression effect of ethical leadership on extra-role behavior (Miao et al., 2013), but most only examine the ethical leadership’s “too much of a good thing” effect (Mo et al., 2019; Yam et al., 2019), there is little research including the positive and negative effect of ethical leadership in the same framework, which is bad for completely understanding the mechanism of ethical leadership on employee behavior. This research proposes that ethical leadership has two core attributes, ethics and compliance, and has independent positive and negative effects on constructive deviance, which provides a powerful supplement for the mechanism of ethical leadership’s influence on employee behavior.
- Secondly, the normative conflict model is revised reasonably in this research. The core hypothesis of the normative conflict model is that normative conflict moderates the relationship between organizational identification and member dissent, that is, normative conflict is the boundary condition of the relationship between organizational identification and member dissent (Packer, 2008). This research further considers normative conflict as an important mechanism of ethical leadership influencing constructive deviance rather than just a boundary condition. On the one hand, normative conflict is as important an antecedent of constructive deviance as organizational identification. According to the normative conflict model, when group members experience high-level normative conflict, they will actively oppose group norms (Packer, 2008). Obviously, normative conflict is an important source of employee deviant motivation; On the other hand, normative conflict is malleable, and leaders can influence employees’ normative conflict objectively and subjectively by improving the rationality of organizational norms and emphasizing the authority of organizational norms. Therefore, based on the framework of the original normative conflict model, this research reconstructs the double-mediating model of organizational identification and normative conflict, and explores the double-edged sword effect of ethical leadership on constructive deviance.
- Thirdly, this research confirms the explanatory power of the normative conflict model between leadership style and constructive deviance, and provides a new theoretical perspective for the formation mechanism of constructive deviance. In recent years, researchers have gradually begun to focus on the negative effects of constructive deviance, but most of them attribute the negative effects to the defects of constructive deviance, ignoring the quality problems caused by the behavior’s initiator with the low level of competence. To exert the effectiveness of constructive deviance, it is necessary not only to encourage employees to engage in constructive deviance, but also to screen out irrational and low-quality constructive deviance. On the one hand, the analysis results show that ethical leadership can stimulate the constructive motivation of employees by improving their organizational identification, and on the other hand, it can weaken the normative conflict of employees and inhibit their deviant motivation, so as to realize the double-edge sword effect on the constructive deviance. This conclusion is helpful to understand the formation mechanism of constructive deviance more comprehensively.
- Finally, this research further explores the impact of ethical leadership on different types of constructive deviance. Compared with other positive leadership, ethical leadership pays more attention to employees’ compliance with organizational standards and normative expectations (Lemoine et al., 2019; Bush et al., 2020). Therefore, when exploring the relationship between ethical leadership and employee’s constructive deviance, it is necessary to consider the difference in the formal degree of norms, and study different types of constructive deviance separately. The data analysis results also support this view. Although both of them belong to constructive deviance, the promotion effect of ethical leadership on constructive organizational deviance that violates the formal norms of the organization is significantly weaker than that of constructive interpersonal deviance.
- This study also provides practical guidance for organizations to deal with the double-edged sword effects of constructive deviance. In most cases, constructive deviance helps to improve employees’ innovation and organizational competitiveness (Li and Wang, 2021; Zhang et al., 2021). However, in the actual organizational situation, employees are unable to make the most favorable judgment for the organization due to the lack of ability and knowledge, and some constructive deviance cannot achieve their expected effects, or even bring losses to the organization (Cui et al., 2020). Therefore, enterprises should not give free rein to employees while giving them discretion. They need to emphasize compliance with organizational normative expectations and raise the threshold for employees to engage in constructive deviance, thus playing a role in screening. Through such managerial measures, the overall quantity of constructive deviance within the organization decreases, but the overall quality improves significantly. However, organizations need to strike a balance between advocating norms and adhering to them, overemphasizing abiding by organizational norms may inhibit employees’ innovation and affect the long-term development of the organization.
- Secondly, ethical leadership should not be regarded as the opposite of organizational innovation. In recent years, with the deeper excavation of ethical leadership, more and more scholars proposed that ethical leadership’s excessive attention on organizational norms will hinder the development of organizational innovation (Mo et al., 2019; Li and Wang, 2021). In fact, the results of this study show that normative conflict may be a barometer of the rationality of organizational norms. The occurrence of employees’ constructive deviance and creative deviance represents that there is room for improvement in the existing organizational norms. Therefore, ethical leadership may not be a stubborn guardian of rules, the purpose of ethical leadership is shaping the best organizational norms so that employees can conduct innovative behaviors without violating organizational norms. This study suggests that organizations can recruit and cultivate ethical leadership using human resource management measures, because ethical leadership may not stand on the opposite side of organizational innovation, but promote efficient organizational innovation.
- Finally, this study suggests that organizations should pay attention to the cultivation of employees’ organizational identification, and give appropriate guidance according to the actual situation of the organization. Employees with high organizational identification do not always follow regulations, and sometimes choose to break organizational norms for the benefit of the organization (Packer, 2008; Dahling and Gutworth, 2017), some employees even engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior for the benefit of the organization, which is obviously not conducive to the long-term development of the organization (Naseer et al., 2020). What is more, different types of organizations have different requirements for their employees. For example, managers of innovative organizations need to cultivate an ends-focused atmosphere to stimulate employees’ organizational-welfare motivation, while organizations such as the military place more emphasis on the procedures and methods, and need to form a means-focused atmosphere inside the organization to stimulate the affiliative motivation of organization members (Blader et al., 2017). Therefore, in management practice, organization managers not only need to cultivate the organizational identification of organization members, but also need to shape correct values for employees, and give appropriate guidance to employees according to the specific situation and cultural background of the organization.