Moral considerations beyond the workplace: how and when authoritarian leadership triggers family undermining behavior

Given the limited research on the moral implications of authoritarian leadership for followers’ family lives, this paper integrates moral disengagement theory with the work-home resources model to examine the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which authoritarian leadership drives followers’ family undermining behavior. Across two experiments and a multi-wave field study (N_total = 502), the results show that authoritarian leadership is positively related to followers’ moral disengagement, which in turn leads to family undermining behavior. Moreover, work-home segmentation preferences mitigate the mediating effect of authoritarian leadership on family undermining behavior via moral disengagement. Overall, this study highlights the moral consequences of authoritarian leadership in followers’ family lives and offers valuable theoretical and practical insights.