ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1587525
Paternalistic Leadership and Counterproductive Work Behavior: Mediating Role of Leader Identification and Moderating Effect of Traditionality in Chinese Generation Z Employees
Provisionally accepted
- Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
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This study investigates how paternalistic leadership-authoritarian, benevolent, and moral-affects counterproductive work behaviors among Chinese Generation Z employees. By integrating culturally specific leadership styles with generational traits, this research offers novel insights into the mechanisms driving counterproductive behaviors in the contemporary Chinese workplace. Using social identity theory and Chinese traditional culture as a foundation, we propose a moderated mediation model with leader identification as a mediator and traditionality as a moderator. Data from a multi-time survey of 324 Gen Z employees in China, analysed with Stata 17.0, reveal that benevolent and moral leadership reduce counterproductive behaviors, while authoritarian leadership increases them. Leader identification fully mediates the effects of benevolent and moral leadership and partially mediates the effect of authoritarian leadership. Traditionality negatively moderates the relationship between paternalistic leadership and leader identification, with lower traditionality strengthening this connection.These results highlight the complex dynamics between leadership styles and employee behavior, providing insights for creating productive and harmonious workplaces for Gen Z employees in China.
Keywords: paternalistic leadership, Counterproductive work behavior, Leader identification, Chinese traditionality, Generation Z Employees
Received: 04 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ke, Liu and Gu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Liu, Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
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