Amid the ever-evolving business environment and increasing uncertainty, organizations must optimize their internal management and organizational structures to achieve sustainable development goals. This necessitates a deeper analysis of leadership. Rooted in social cognitive theory, this study examines the mechanism connecting self-interested organizational ethical climate and exploitative leadership. Employees from medium to large-sized enterprises in Xinjiang, China, were surveyed, and 296 valid responses were collected. Results show that self-interested organizational ethical climate exerts a significant positive influence on exploitative leadership, with hostile attribution bias mediating this relationship. Self-efficacy negatively moderates the relationship between self-interested organizational ethical climate and exploitative leadership. This study reveals the antecedent mechanisms and influence pathways of exploitative leadership, providing important theoretical and practical insights for organizational management.
Ren et al. (Mon,) studied this question.