ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicPersonality Interactions in the Workplace: Light and Dark Sides of Human BehaviorView all articles
How Machiavellian Leadership Affects Employees' Happiness at Work: The Role of Psychological Contract Breach and Coworker Exchange
Provisionally accepted
- 1Liupanshui Normal University, Liupanshui, China
- 2Changzhou Vocational Institute of Industry Technology, Changzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
In the hospitality industry, where service quality heavily depends on frontline employees' emotional engagement and well-being, leadership behaviors play a critical role in shaping employees' workplace experiences. Despite the growing attention to dark leadership styles, limited research has examined how Machiavellian leadership (ML) affects employees' happiness at work (HAW) and the underlying psychological mechanisms in hospitality settings. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study investigates the impact of ML on employees' HAW, the mediating role of psychological contract breach (PCB), and the moderating role of coworker exchange (CWX). Study 1 employed a scenario-based experiment, recruiting 188 employees from four five-star hotels in China to examine the causal relationship between ML and employees' HAW by manipulating ML conditions. Study 2 was conducted among frontline employees of 11 five-star hotels in Southwest China, utilizing a three-wave survey (N = 483) to collect data. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyze the mediating role of PCB and the moderating effect of CWX in this relationship. The results indicate that ML significantly reduces employees' HAW. Furthermore, PCB mediates the negative impact of ML on employees' HAW, while CWX plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between ML and HAW. These findings extend the dark leadership literature by elucidating how ML disrupts social exchange processes and undermines employees' HAW in service-oriented organizations. From a practical perspective, the study highlights the importance of mitigating the negative consequences of ML through effective psychological contract management and by fostering high-quality CWX relationships in hospitality organizations.
Keywords: Coworker exchange (CWX), happiness at work (HAW), Hospitality industry, Machiavellian leadership (ML), psychological contractbreach (PCB)
Received: 08 Dec 2025; Accepted: 30 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wu, Lu and Liu. 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:
Hao Wu
Shuai Lu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.