Exploring and Verifying the Process of Leading to Workplace Deviance: Testing the Moderated Mediation Effect of Fear of Negative Evaluation

The purpose of this research was to explore which variables facilitate Chinese SMEs employees’ workplace deviance and focused on uncovering the processes that lead to deviant behavior. Unlike previous studies, rather than simply focusing on variables exploration or main effect verification, we provided and verified the research model related to process by which workplace deviance occurs. Specifically, this research verified exploitative leadership influences workplace deviance through negative emotions and examined the moderated mediation role of fear of negative evaluation. Therefore, this study conducted a data survey on adult employees in SMEs from 25 provinces, municipalities, and regions in China. Ultimately, 305 valid samples were used in the empirical analysis and utilized SPSS 26.0, AMOS 23.0, and PROCESS Macro 3.4.1 to analyze the results. As expected in this study, all hypotheses were supported except hypothesis 6. In addition, based on research results, expected effects are provided in terms of theory and practice. Theoretically, it discloses the mediating role of negative emotions between exploitative leadership and workplace deviance, as well as the moderated mediating role of fear of negative evaluation, broadens the comprehension of the relationships. In practice, it facilitates organizations in identifying and managing exploitative leadership, mitigates workplace deviance, and simultaneously alerts managers to pay attention to the employees’ negative emotions and fear of negative evaluation. Overall, the causal relationship between exploitative leadership and workplace deviance through a process, which can be seen as an expansion of the research field and is considered a contribution of this study.