Moral or Lawful? When Legal Constraints Reverse the Motivational Benefits of Moral Considerations

Abstract

Nearly every employee is subject to some form of legal requirement as a function of their work. Laws are often implemented by authorities to ensure that employees and organizations engage in ethical and moral conduct at work. Importantly, acting in a moral manner is linked to benefits for employees, increasing intrinsic motivation that facilitates high levels of proactive behavior. Yet, employees increasingly face situations where laws or regulations conflict with what they perceive as morally appropriate (i.e., legal constraints on moral behavior), which we argue instead have negative consequences for employees. Combining insights from the literature on motivation and moral foundations theory, we propose that when employees face legal constraints on moral behavior, they feel less intrinsically motivated, leading them to engage in less proactive behavior. We further predict that legal constraints are less damaging when employees perceive them as necessary versus unnecessary evils. We test our model across three complementary studies: a field study of employees from a company in a heavily regulated industry and two preregistered experiments.