Influence of Challenge–Hindrance Stressors on Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Mediating Role of Emotions

Lin Xu,Jigan Wang

doi:10.3390/su12187576

Abstract

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), which threatens the sustainable development of enterprises, has become important research content in organizational management in recent years. Based on the framework of challenge–hindrance stressors, we explored the effect of stress on UPB from an emotional perspective. Multi-mediation models were constructed to reveal the relationship between stressors (challenge and hindrance stressors) and UPB, and the mediating roles of individual anxiety, attentiveness, and anger. The results of 375 questionnaires indicated that challenge stressors had no significant relationship with UPB due to the presence of the suppression effect. Challenge stressors had a positive effect on UPB through anxiety and a negative effect on UPB through attentiveness. Hindrance stressors had a positive effect on UPB through the mediation of anxiety and anger. Managers can benefit from the findings to correctly cope with employees’ emotional reactions and unethical behaviors caused by work stress, and take appropriate management measures to reduce and prevent employees’ UPB.

Highlights

The rapid development of the social economy has resulted in frequent business scandals, such as the “bribe gate” of Siemens seeking orders, Enron, and Sanlu Company’s melamine incident
The exposure of immoral events hinders the sustainable development of the organization, which makes the value of ethics in the practice of organization management widely concerning [1]
Challenge stressors were significantly positively correlated with attentiveness (r = 0.200, p < 0.01) and anxiety (r = 0.445, p < 0.01)

Summary

Introduction

The rapid development of the social economy has resulted in frequent business scandals, such as the “bribe gate” of Siemens seeking orders, Enron, and Sanlu Company’s melamine incident. Many studies in recent years have recognized that employees’ unethical behavior may benefit their organizations [3]. This behavior was named unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) by Umphress and Bingham (2011) [4]. UPB may initially benefit organizations and individuals, its unethical nature may eventually result in UPB deviating from the original intention, thereby causing adverse or even destructive consequences. UPB can be detrimental to the interests of other stakeholders and the reputation and legal status of organizations, thereby hindering the sustainable development of these organizations [5,6]. To effectively prevent and control this behavior, studies have been conducted to explore the causes of UPB

Objectives

Methods

Results