IMPACT OF DESPOTIC LEADERSHIP ON WORKPLACE DEVIANCE: MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB SATISFACTION AND MODERATING ROLE OF ISLAMIC WORK ETHICS

Abstract

Leadership has long been recognized as a key determinant of employee attitudes and behaviors, yet recent studies emphasize the destructive effects of toxic forms of leadership. Despotic leadership, characterized by authoritarianism, arrogance, and self-interest, undermines employee well-being and may provoke counterproductive workplace behaviors. In parallel, research on Islamic Work Ethics (IWE) suggests that values rooted in fairness, responsibility, and community serve as protective personal resources in organizational settings. Building on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates how despotic leadership influences workplace deviance directly and indirectly through job satisfaction, while also examining the moderating role of IWE. The study adopted a quantitative, cross-sectional design with data collected from employees of medium to large-scale manufacturing organizations in Pakistan. A stratified random sampling approach ensured representation across diverse departments. Validated instruments were used to measure despotic leadership, job satisfaction, workplace deviance, and IWE. Data analysis was conducted using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS 4 to test direct, mediating, and moderating effects. Findings revealed that despotic leadership had a significant positive effect on workplace deviance, confirming that authoritarian and exploitative leadership behaviors trigger retaliatory and counterproductive responses among employees. Job satisfaction was found to mediate this relationship, highlighting that reduced satisfaction is a critical pathway through which despotic leadership fosters deviance. Importantly, the results also demonstrated that IWE moderated the relationship between despotic leadership and deviance, such that employees with higher levels of IWE were less likely to engage in deviant behaviors under despotic leadership conditions. The study contributes to leadership and organizational behavior literature by integrating destructive leadership, employee satisfaction, deviance, and ethics into a unified model.

Keywords: Despotic Leadership, Workplace Deviance, Job Satisfaction, Islamic Work Ethics