Purpose Drawing on the social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between despotic leadership and employee’s organizational deviance. Specifically, the authors take a relational approach by introducing employee’s organizational identification as the mediator. The moderating role of value congruence in the relationship between despotic leadership and organizational deviance is also considered.

Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 15 universities in Turkey. The sample included 1,219 randomly chosen faculty members along with their department chairs. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the proposed model.

Findings The results of this study supported the positive effect of despotic leadership on employee’s organizational deviance as well as the mediating effect of employee’s organizational identification. Moreover, when the level of value congruence is high, the relationship between organizational identification and organizational deviance is strong, whereas the effect is weak when the level of value congruence is low.

Practical implications The findings of this study suggest that educational administrators in the higher education should be sensitive in treating their subordinates, as it will lead to positive interpersonal relationship, which, in turn, will reduce organizational deviance. Moreover, they should pay more attention to the buffering role of value congruence for those subordinates with high distrust and showing organizational deviance.

Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on workplace deviance by revealing the relational mechanism between despotic leadership and employee organizational deviance. The paper also offers a practical assistance to employees in the higher education and their leaders interested in building trust, increasing leader-employee relationship and reducing organizational deviance.