Investigating the Effects of Leadership Styles on Workplace Deviance with emphasis on the Mediating Role of Perceived Politicization in the Organization

Abs tractPurpose: The purpose of the present s tudy was to inves tigate the effects of leadership s tyles on employees' deviant behavior with the mediating role of perceived politicization and the moderating role of social support among employees working in Abadan Oil Refining Company.In the proposed research model, leadership s tyle was the independent variable and workplace deviance functioned as the dependent variable; besides, perceived organizational politicization played the role of mediating variable.Methodology: The method of the current research was correlational.The s tatis tical sample consis ted of 480 individuals whom we selected from among the employees of Abadan Oil Refinery Company using a multis tage random sampling method.Using s tructural equation modeling, we evaluated the conceptual research model. Findings:The results show that all the direct paths are significant, except for the transactional leadership s tyle regarding perceived politicization.Also, the mediating effect of perceived politicization between ethical and transformational leadership s tyles and deviant behaviors in the workplace is significant.However, the moderating role of social support between perceived politicization and workplace deviance is not significant.Originality: For the firs t time in Iran, the present research has inves tigated the impact of organizational leadership s tyles on creating a politicizing atmosphere in the organization and its ability to control this phenomenon.