This study investigates how an employee's core self‐evaluation (CSE) affects their self‐regulation depletion in response to leader injustice. To reconcile the conflicting predictions of CSE reported in the existing leadership and justice literature, we propose and test a self‐esteem contingency model for CSE, drawing on the self‐determination theory (SDT) account of the self‐regulatory process. We hypothesize that when an employee's CSE is heavily contingent on the leader's approval and recognition (denoted as high‐level leader‐contingent self‐esteem), CSE facilitates a controlled form of self‐regulation in response to leader injustice, leading to self‐regulation depletion. Conversely, when one's CSE is less contingent on the leader's approval (denoted as low‐level leader‐contingent self‐esteem), self‐regulation facilitated by CSE in the presence of leader injustice is less of controlled, reducing the likelihood of self‐regulation depletion. Our results and implications from three studies consistently supported our main hypothesis regarding the three‐way interaction of leader injustice, CSE and leader‐contingent self‐esteem, as well as highlighting the potential downside of a follower's self‐esteem being overly reliant on their leader's treatment.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of employees' self-efficacy on employees' organizational identification. Based on a self-verification perspective, this paper focuses on the mediating role of leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) and the moderating role of perceived organizational justice.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a field survey (Study 1) of 207 employees recruited from multiple financial organizations and tested a moderated mediation model using Hayes's (2018) PROCESS macro. The authors conducted another scenario-based experiment (Study 2) using a sample of 151 employees recruited online to further establish causality in our model.FindingsResults suggest that employees' self-efficacy is positively associated with their LMXSC, which, in turn, positively impacts employees' organizational identification. The positive relationship between LMXSC and organizational identification is stronger when employees' perceived organizational justice is higher. The indirect effect of self-efficacy on organizational identification through LMXSC is also strengthened by perceived organizational justice.Practical implicationsManagers are encouraged to develop employees' self-efficacy and to create a fair environment to promote employees' identification with the organization.Originality/valueThis research extends organizational identification literature by examining how and when employees' self-efficacy, a dispositional predictor, leads to employees' identification with the organization from a self-verification perspective.

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