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.