Impact of Workplace Status on Employee Expediency and Intention to Sabotage: Mediating Role of Unethical Pro-Supervisor Behavior

Abstract

Humans have an innate desire to attain high status as it provides the individual with greater resources and benefits. This study particularly focuses on the workplace where status is quite evident. The positive aspect of workplace status dominates in the existing literature by linking it with desirable outcomes, but less attention has been placed on examining its dark side. Utilizing the social influence theory, this study empirically investigates the link between workplace status and employee expediency and intention to sabotage in presence of unethical pro-supervisor behavior as mediator. This study is based on a quantitative research design. Using the Hayes PROCESS technique in SPSS, on three-wave primary data collected (N=250) from employees of service sector organizations in Pakistan, our results reveal that workplace status triggers employee expediency and intention to sabotage through the underlying mechanism of unethical-pro supervisor behavior. This study finds considerable support for all the hypotheses pertaining to direct and indirect effects. Overall, our research extends the literature on the dark side of workplace status and unethical behaviors and advances social influence theory by providing support and offers insightful theoretical and practical implications for inhibiting unethical behaviors in the workplace. Limitations and future research directions have also been discussed at the end.