{"title":"Anger for good? Unethical-behavior-targeted leader anger expression and its consequences on team outcomes","authors":"Shimin Zhang, Shenjiang Mo, Wu Liu","doi":"10.1002/job.2756","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>Although leader anger expression targeted at employees' unethical behavior is pervasive in the workplace, we still know little about its theoretical meaning and consequences. To address this theoretical blind spot, we drew on fairness heuristic theory to investigate whether, how, and when unethical-behavior-targeted (UB-targeted) leader anger expression affects team outcomes. Our findings from two time-lagged field studies suggest that a punishment-based distributive justice climate mediates the positive effects of UB-targeted leader anger expression on team organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and team viability. Moreover, leader moral decoupling weakens these indirect relationships. Specifically, the indirect relationships are weaker when the leader separated judgments of performance from those of ethics. These findings highlight the importance of a fairness perspective in understanding the consequences of leader anger expression targeted at unethical behaviors.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":48450,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Organizational Behavior","volume":"45 1","pages":"57-80"},"PeriodicalIF":6.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Organizational Behavior","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2756","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Although leader anger expression targeted at employees' unethical behavior is pervasive in the workplace, we still know little about its theoretical meaning and consequences. To address this theoretical blind spot, we drew on fairness heuristic theory to investigate whether, how, and when unethical-behavior-targeted (UB-targeted) leader anger expression affects team outcomes. Our findings from two time-lagged field studies suggest that a punishment-based distributive justice climate mediates the positive effects of UB-targeted leader anger expression on team organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and team viability. Moreover, leader moral decoupling weakens these indirect relationships. Specifically, the indirect relationships are weaker when the leader separated judgments of performance from those of ethics. These findings highlight the importance of a fairness perspective in understanding the consequences of leader anger expression targeted at unethical behaviors.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Organizational Behavior aims to publish empirical reports and theoretical reviews of research in the field of organizational behavior, wherever in the world that work is conducted. The journal will focus on research and theory in all topics associated with organizational behavior within and across individual, group and organizational levels of analysis, including: -At the individual level: personality, perception, beliefs, attitudes, values, motivation, career behavior, stress, emotions, judgment, and commitment. -At the group level: size, composition, structure, leadership, power, group affect, and politics. -At the organizational level: structure, change, goal-setting, creativity, and human resource management policies and practices. -Across levels: decision-making, performance, job satisfaction, turnover and absenteeism, diversity, careers and career development, equal opportunities, work-life balance, identification, organizational culture and climate, inter-organizational processes, and multi-national and cross-national issues. -Research methodologies in studies of organizational behavior.