How harmful leadership undermines employee well-being in high-pressure Asian work contexts: a moderated serial mediation model

Purpose Employees working in high-pressure Asia-Pacific organisational contexts face increasing psychosocial stressors; however, there is little empirical research on how toxic leadership environments affect employee well-being. Using COR theory, this research examines corporate psychopathy as a chronic psychosocial stressor affecting employees' well-being and conceptualises it as a contextual leadership-based resource-loss condition embedded in hierarchical organisational environments common across emerging Asia-Pacific economies. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected from 200 full-time employees in manufacturing organisations. Based on a time-lagged analysis, we tested a proposed moderated serial mediation model using PLS-SEM version 4.2. Findings Corporate psychopathy affects employee well-being. Organisational cynicism and innovative work behaviour sequentially mediate this relationship, demonstrating how psychopathic leaders suppress employees' discretionary innovation through their cynical responses to the leader's behaviour, and how employees' overall well-being is negatively affected by these responses. Furthermore, moral disengagement strengthens the negative indirect effects on employee well-being. Research limitations/implications This research builds on COR by demonstrating that leaders who create resource loss initiate a cascading effect that creates cynicism toward the organisation and reduces employees' willingness to engage in innovative behaviour, which is linked to employee well-being under high pressure. Originality/value This study provides contextually grounded evidence from Pakistan demonstrating how corporate psychopathy functions as a structural psychosocial risk factor in high-pressure Asia-Pacific organisational environments. By identifying sequential cognitive and behavioural mechanisms linking harmful leadership to employee well-being, the study extends research on destructive leadership beyond Western settings and offers a process-based explanation of leadership-driven resource loss in hierarchical organisational systems.