11784: Fulfilled or Thwarted Wishes: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Leader Moral Perfectionism (session 25716)

Moral perfectionism has recently garnered attention from psychological scholars; however, existing research primarily focuses on self-oriented moral perfectionism, neglecting a significant interpersonal characteristic—other-oriented moral perfectionism. This study introduces the concept of other-oriented moral perfectionism and examines the impact of this interpersonal moral characteristic of leaders on employees’ unethical behaviors. Specifically, based on social cognitive theory and survey data from 641 employees and their direct leaders in chain supermarket company, this study demonstrates that leader moral perfectionism stimulates employees’ cognitive moral crafting, thereby inhibiting their unethical behavior. Simultaneously, leader moral perfectionism weakens employees’ moral self-efficacy and promotes unethical behavior. This study suggests that the key factor influencing these two conflicting effects is whether employees possess implicit theories of morality. These implicit theories can strengthen the former indirect effect but weaken the latter. Our findings extend moral perfectionism to the other-oriented domain, broaden our understanding of the literature on leader perfectionism, and provide significant insights and theoretical implications for the formation of employees’ moral cognition and practices.

view paper (if available)