Abstract:

Recently, ethical leadership has become the focus of theory research and management practice. However, there are so few researches to explore the relationship between ethical leadership and employee counterproductive work behavior (CWB), and especially the mechanism of different levels ethical leadership on CWB. Based on China culture and social reality, we discuss the influence mechanism of ethical leadership on CWB from multilevel perspective. There are three contents to explore: (1) the mechanism of executive/ top management ethical leadership on group CWB, and especially to check the mediating effect of ethical culture and the moderating effect of organizational structure. (2) the “cascading effect” of executive/ top management ethical leadership on employee CWB in China, and the moderating effect of power distance orientation. (3) the mechanism of supervisor ethical leadership on employee CWB, especially to check the mediating effect of trust in leadership and leadership identification, and the moderating effect of traditionality and moral identity. Research the mechanisms of different levels ethical leadership on CWB not only can enrich and develop the theory system of ethical leadership and CWB, but also can offer several management tactics for how to train ethical leadership and guide ethical leaders’ work.

Key words: ethical leadership, counterproductive work behavior, multilevel