Abstract: Based on the social identity theory and achievement goal theory, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the 320 pairs of leader-member matching data, then it explores the mediating role of organizational identification between empowering leadership and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior and the moderating role of performance goal orientation. The findings show that organizational identification can play a mediating role between empowering leadership and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. Employees’ avoidance of performance goal orientation can negatively moderate the impact of organization identification on organizational citizenship behavior. At the same time, it can moderate the indirect effect of organizational identification between empowering leadership and organizational citizenship behavior, i.e., the higher the avoidance performance goal orientation, the weaker the mediating effect of organizational identification.

Key words: empowering leadership; organizational identification; organizational citizenship behavior; performance goal orientation