Empirical evidence has underscored the close association between employees' engagement in unethical behaviors and their leaders' behavioral style. In this study we hypothesized that affective commitment would mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employees' unethical proorganizational behavior, and that future focus would moderate both the relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment and the overarching mediation model. We used path analysis and structural equation modeling to analyze data obtained from 176 finance professionals and their supervisors. The results demonstrated that affective commitment fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. However, the moderating effect of future focus was not significant. These results highlight that reducing employees' affective commitment to the organization may help mitigate their unethical behaviors. Our findings provide valuable insights for designing effective interventions to reduce financial fraud.
Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.