Workplace envy as an inhibitor of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior: the role of sustainable leadership

Purpose: Drawing on social exchange and social comparison theories, the current work aims to examine the direct and indirect effect of sustainable leadership (SL) on employees’ change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through workplace envy (WE). Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected data from multiple sources (311 employees and respective supervisors) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. Partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was conducted to verify the proposed hypotheses. Findings: The current empirical results confirmed that SL positively influences change-oriented OCB – both directly and indirectly (through WE). The negative impact of WE on change-oriented OCB is also concluded in this study. Originality/value: To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is among pioneer studies which introduced inhibitor as a mediator in the “SL-employee behavioral outcomes” relationship. Limitations and implications have been elaborated at the end of the study.