Research On The Relationship Between Paternalistic Leadership And Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior Of Civil Servants

In China's current political system,the administrative organization represents the state to exercise the national administrative power,to manage public affairs,and to hold the core,scarce social resources.Civil servants are the specific performers of the national public power.Therefore,as an effective way to prevent the alienation of power and maintain the interests of citizens,which can further realize social fairness,justice,harmony and stability,it is of great importance to strengthen the research on civil servants' moral construction and standardize their moral behavior.Unethical pro-organizational behavior(UPB)refers to the behavior of the individuals which violates morality or even law,but for the interests of the organization and/or members.Based on the traditional cultural background and administrative characteristics of China,this study explored the relationship between paternalistic leadership and civil servants' UPB,as well as the mediating effect of moral disengagement and the moderating effect of leader-member exchange,which revealed the underlying mechanism and boundary condition.Three studies were conducted as follows:First of all,researchers revised the unethical pro-organizational behaviors scale of civil servants.Based on the unethical pro-organizational behaviors scale by Umphress&Bingham(2010)and Matheme&Litchfield(2012),refering to the unethical pro-organizational behaviors scale by Wu Mingzheng,Shen Bin,&Sun Xiaoling(2016),through a series process of interviews and questionnaires surveys,revised Unethical Pro-organizational Behaviors Scale of Civil Servants contained eight items and has showed perfect psychometric properties.Secondly,this research has explored the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and civil servants' UPB.The study found that among the dimensions of the paternalistic leadership,the civil servants' UPB was positively related to the authoritarian leadership and negatively related to moral leadership,but had no significant relation with benevolent leadership.Furthermore,moral disengagement had a partial mediating effect on authoritarian leadership's prediction to civil servants'UPB,while a folly mediating effect on benevolent leadership's prediction to civil servants'UPB.Thirdly,this research also has explored the moderation role of leader-member exchange in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and civil servants' UPB.The study found that leader-member exchange moderated the relationship between authoritarian leadership and civil servants' UPB.Authoritarian leadership can influence civil servants'UPB only under a high level of leader-member exchange.Besides,leader-member exchange moderated the relationship between benevolent leadership and civil servants' UPB.Although benevolent leadership could not act alone in civil servants' UPB,it had an interaction with leader-member exchangeon civil servants,UPB.Benevolent leadership was negatively related to civil servants' UPB under a high level of leader-member exchange but positively related to civil servants' UPB under a low level of leader-member exchange.Besides,compared to the low level of leader-member exchange,when there was a high level of leader-member exchange,moral leadership had a stronger prediction on civil servants' UPB.