The impact of leaders’ self-serving and ethical behaviors on employee thriving: The mediating role of interpersonal justice perception

Previous studies have investigated the leadership factors that act as predictors of employee thriving. Yet, there is scarce empirical research on leaders’ self-serving and ethical behaviors. Thus, this study aims to explore how these behaviors influence employee thriving and proposes interpersonal justice perception as an underlying mediation mechanism. Three-wave web-based surveys are utilized to collect data from 158 participants. The research model is tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results indicate that employees’ perception of interpersonal justice mediates the effects of leaders’ self-serving and ethical behaviors on employees’ learning-thriving. However, employees’ perception of interpersonal justice does not mediate their vitality-thriving. These findings reveal that interpersonal justice perception is not equally important for learning-thriving and vitality-thriving. This study represents an original effort to examine employee learning-thriving from the perspective of leaders’ self-serving and ethical behaviors. It also presents a novel effort to uncover interpersonal justice perception as an explanatory mediation mechanism for learning-thriving.