Beyond the ‘Positive Halo’: How Perceived Transformational Principals Influence Teachers’ Unethical Professional Behaviour?

ABSTRACT This study, based on the social exchange theory, investigated the potential mechanisms of principals’ transformational leadership in teachers’ unethical professional behaviour. After collecting the data of 489 teachers in junior schools, we found that: (1) Perceived transformational principal has an indirect positive relationship with teachers’ unethical professional behaviour and this relationship is mediated by psychological empowerment. (2) School power distance negatively moderated the effect of perceived transformational principal on teachers’ psychological empowerment, which means that when the power distance was higher, the positive relationship of perceived transformational principal and teachers’ psychological empowerment would be weakened.