From despotism to impact: how project managers' despotic leadership influences project citizenship behavior of project members through knowledge sabotage?

Purpose Based on the social exchange and conservation of resources theories, this study aims to thoroughly investigate the harmful impacts of project managers' despotic leadership on project members' citizenship behavior via knowledge sabotage behavior, while also considering the buffering role of resilience. Design/methodology/approach To gauge the relationship, time-lagged data were gathered from two sources encompassing 282 employees and their peers. Structural equation modeling and the PROCESS macro were applied to examine our proposed hypotheses. Findings The findings supported the negative impact of despotic leadership on project citizenship behavior, along with the mediating role of knowledge sabotage behavior. Although resilience buffered the negative effect of despotic leadership on knowledge sabotage behavior, it failed to statistically support the moderated mediation relationship about the indirect effect of despotic leadership on project citizenship behavior through knowledge sabotage behavior. Originality/value The study is among the pioneers to examine how a Project Manager's despotic leadership indirectly influences project citizenship behavior of project team members through knowledge sabotage, while highlighting resilience as a buffering mechanism.