Insatiable, Individualistic, and Investing in Oneself: Examining Employee Greed from COR Theory

Abstract

Despite the frequent attribution of greed as a primary cause of inefficiency and dysfunction within the workplace, research examining the influence of greed on employee work behavior remains scant. The present study seeks to address this gap by examining how, why, and when greed motivates employees to advance their own interests over the interests of others, and, in turn, contribute to organizational and work-unit functioning. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we contend that greed activates the individual self-concept, which in turn motivates employees to conserve their resources by withholding helping behavior, and acquire resources by engaging in self-serving voice. In addition, we explore the potential for increased resource access – via the quality of the relationship with one’s leader – to amplify these effects. Survey data was collected across two- waves from 218 employees at a large Chinese logistic company. Our results indicate that greed exerts a negative indirect effect on employee helping behavior, and a positive indirect effect on employee self-serving voice, via individual self-concept. However, these indirect effects are significant only in the presence of high-quality leader-member relationships with such indirect effects becoming non-significant in low-quality leader-member relationships. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications of this research.