Machiavellianism on Workplace Deviance: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and The Moderating Effect of Perceived Abusive Supervision

• Published in: International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology(IJACT) Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 22 - 39
• Main Authors: Kai Han, Le Wang, Xiu Jin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 국제문화기술진흥원 31.03.2025
• Subjects: 과학기술학; Perceived Abusive Supervision; Workplace Deviance; Machiavellian Leadership; Moral Disengagement; Chinese SMEs
• ISSN: 2288-7202; 2288-7318

As workplace relationships become increasingly complex, the prevalence of Machiavellianism has led to a significant depletion of employees' work and emotional resources. This has prompted some employees to adopt workplace deviance to prevent resource depletion and even retaliate through negative reciprocity. workplace deviance by employees has become one of the major causes of economic loss in companies and has gradually attracted attention in the field of organizational management in recent years. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether Machiavellianism increases workplace deviance among employees and to analyze the role of moral disengagement as a mediator in this process. In addition, we investigated the moderating role of perceived abusive supervision between Machiavellianism and moral disengagement and whether the mediating role of moral disengagement in the process of Machiavellianism influencing employees' workplace deviance is moderated by perceived abusive supervision. To test this model, we collected data from 282 employees from Chinese SMEs. The results showed that Machiavellianism positively influenced employees’ workplace deviance through moral disengagement, perceived abusive supervision positively moderated Machiavellianism's influence on employees’ workplace deviance, and moderated the mediating effect of moral disengagement in Workplace Exclusion on employees' workplace deviance. This study reveals the negative effects of Machiavellianism and moral disengagement, provides new perspectives for organizations to guard against workplace deviance, broadens the field of research, and brings important insights for organizations.