The role of leader favoritism, unfairness, and employability in employee psychological withdrawal behavior

Abstract

Given the adverse consequences of destructive leadership at work, we examine leader favoritism prevalent in contemporary organizations. Our study builds on previous research on unethical leadership behaviors and extends social exchange theory by assessing whether leader favoritism contributes to employee psychological withdrawal behavior at work and whether perceived unfairness explains this link, addressing a gap in the literature on this topic. In addition, we investigate the condition of perceived employability to seek whether the influence of perceived unfairness due to leader favoritism on psychological withdrawal behavior at work is strengthened when employees think they can secure alternative employment elsewhere. The study utilizes a two‐wave data collection approach to gather responses from 206 front end customer service employees working in the hospitality and tourism firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study findings offer empirical support for the proposed mediated moderation model. Specifically, the results demonstrate that leader favoritism directly, indirectly (via perceived unfairness), and positively influence employee withdrawal behaviors. This influence is stronger among employees who believe they can easily find alternative employment options. Our findings highlight the relevance of incorporating social exchange theory into the unethical leadership behaviors and withdrawal behaviors literature and provide valuable insights for managers into how to mitigate the practice of leader favoritism because of its adverse consequences on employees' work attitudes and behavior.

Favouritism: a recipe for ostracism? How jealousy and self-esteem intervene

“…This flexibility is particularly valuable in research, as it allows for a nuanced examination of the relationships amongst variables (Chin et al ., 2003, p. 25; Gefen et al ., 2000; Westland, 2007). The utilisation of the PLS-SEM technique for data analysis has been extensively adopted across a range of disciplines, including behavioural sciences and business management (see, for example, Bani-Melhem et al , 2020a, b; Mohd. Shamsudin et al ., 2023; Portalanza-Chavarría and Revuelto-Taboada, 2023).…”

“…Drawing on social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964) and social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), we developed and tested a moderated-mediation model to investigate whether leader behaviours, specifically leader playing favourites, drive employees to be jealous, leading them ostracise others (i.e. a favoured colleague) in service-based organisations, which also have issues with negative leadership, such as leader favouritism (Mohd. Shamsudin et al, 2023) and ostracism (Abubakar et al, 2017).…”