Abstract
Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), why organizational members conduct this behavior volitionally still requires further exploration. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, our study investigated the impact of leaders’ high performance expectations on employees’ PSRB, following a hypothetical model with work stress as the mediator and perceived organizational support as the moderator. A three-waved time-lagged survey covering 208 dyad data of supervisor-subordinate from 41 teams of five enterprises in Shanghai, China, provided support for our hypotheses. After analyzing, we found that high performance expectations increased employees’ work stress, and further influenced employees’ PSRB substantially via stress, where the relationship was moderated by perceived organizational support. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed from a sustainability perspective.
Highlights
Organizational rules are considered essential to maintain organizational fairness and stability, improving organizational efficiency, and directing organizations toward sustainable development goals [1,2,3,4]
Based on the theoretical derivation of the above hypotheses, we further propose a moderated mediation model: High performance expectations (HPEs) will produce a perception of high stress on employees, and indirectly affect the pro-social rule breaking (PSRB) of employees positively; in other words, the stress perceived by employees play a mediator between the two
While there have been studies on the impact mechanisms of employees’ PSRB at the individual and organizational levels, rare attention has been paid to the impact of an important situational factor in the workplace: HPEs on employees’ PSRB
Summary
Organizational rules are considered essential to maintain organizational fairness and stability, improving organizational efficiency, and directing organizations toward sustainable development goals [1,2,3,4]. Employees at the workplace frequently violate formal rules to accomplish what is good for the organization or others [7,8]. The waiter will give the frustrated customer a free dessert to retrieve the situation and satisfy the customer. The behavior that employees intentionally violates a formal organizational policy, regulation, or prohibition with the primary intention of promoting the welfare of the organization or one of its stakeholders is defined as pro-social rule breaking [7]. The existing research on the antecedents of PSRB mainly included individual factors, such as risk propensity and conscientiousness, and organizational situational factors, such as leadership style and ethical climates [7,9,10,11]
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