RT Article
T1 Fear of failure in the fast lane: how stretch goals fuel unethical leadership and employee misconduct
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 203
IS 2
SP 357
OP 376
A1 Zhu, Yanghao
A1 Long, Lirong
A1 Zhang, Yannan
A2 Long, Lirong
A2 Zhang, Yannan
LA English
YR 2026
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1948504049
AB Reports of organizational scandals often describe leaders who encourage subordinates to commit unethical acts for the organization; this phenomenon is known as leader immorality encouragement. However, the causes of and preventive methods for leader immorality encouragement have yet to be fully elucidated. Based on the dual-process theory and loss-aversion framework, we argue that leader stretch goals may increase leader immorality encouragement and subsequent employees’ unethical behavior by increasing fear of failure. We further examine the moderating effect of the organizational failure tolerance climate on the above relationship. To test the hypotheses, we conduct a scenario experiment (N = 234) and a four-wave leader-employee dyadic survey study (N = 134). The results reveal that leader stretch goals increase fear of failure, which drives leaders to engage in leader immorality encouragement, thereby triggering employees’ unethical behavior. Moreover, the organizational failure tolerance climate moderates this mediation effect, such that the mediation effect is significant only in organizations with a lower level of failure tolerance and not significant in organizations with a higher level of failure tolerance. This finding suggests that when stretch goals are applied in an unsupportive climate (i.e., lower organizational failure tolerance), they may wreak havoc on organizations. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions of this paper.
K1 Employee unethical behavior
K1 Failure tolerance climate
K1 Fear of failure
K1 Leader immorality encouragement
K1 Stretch goals
K1 Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
DO 10.1007/s10551-025-06028-3