Pro-social Rule Breaking Research Articles

Public Service Motivation and Prosocial Rule-Breaking: An International Vignettes Study in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands

We theorize that people with high Public Service Motivation (PSM) are especially prone to engage in prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) behavior, which ultimately leads to discriminatory practices, particularly for clients associated with positive affect. We conduct an original vignette study in three countries (Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) with 928 observations in total. Our findings provide tentative behavioral evidence on a linear relationship between PSM and the likelihood of PSRB and a strong positive association with client likeability, which is an asymmetric relationship: Negative affect cues have a larger negative effect than positive affect cues have a positive effect on PSRB. Although our results vary across the three country studies regarding the effects of PSM, overall, the results imply that high-PSM individuals have a tendency to being more likely to engage in PSRB and that clients who are perceived as more favorable will receive a less strict application of bureaucratic rules compared to less favorable clients.

Disobeying Orders’ as Responsible Leadership: Revisiting Churchill, Percival and the Fall of Singapore

In many organizations, subsidiary performance goals are developed remotely by optimistic leaders back at headquarters, leaving deployed managers vulnerable to unrealistic operational expectations on the frontline, unable to follow orders. Most management research categorizes employees’ failure to follow workplace directives as deviant behavior. In contrast, I argue that in some circumstances ‘disobeying orders’ should be considered a virtuous, responsible leadership strategy when facing unachievable tasks. Through a historical analysis of the surrender of the British colony Singapore to Japan during World War II, this paper links pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), productive resistance, and responsible leadership literatures, developing a process model that explains how some deployed leaders cope with ethical dilemmas in virtuous ways by ‘disobeying orders’.

THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYEE'S HAPPINESS IN HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

This study was carried out to reveal the importance of employee happiness in terms of Human Resources Management (HRM), to identify organizational concepts and job attitudes related to employee happiness, to accelerate studies on this issue, to guide future researchers and other interested people and to be useful in the literature. In this context, 48 articles published between 1995 and 2020 in the journal "Human Resource Management Review", which was scanned in the Science Citation Index (SCI), were examined through systematic literature review. In the light of the obtained findings, it has been observed that the concept of employee happiness is significantly related to the job attitude, the meaning of the job, the pleasure of work, entertainment at work, safe relationships, perceived justice, attachment styles, emotional loyalty, employee moods, employee cynicism, employee status, employee social skills, employee voice, employee loyalty, employee well-being, work experience, work stress, social relationships, health emotion, passion, high performance and loving job, ethical organizational culture, promotion-oriented self-control system, HR practices according to Miller's "Utilitarian Theory", Pro-Social Rule Breaking (PSRB) and Sustainable HRM strategies. Also, in the conclusion part of the study, suggestions developed for organizational concepts determined to be related to employee happiness in the literature are included.

Inclusive Leadership and Pro-Social Rule Breaking: The Role of Psychological Safety, Leadership Identification and Leader-Member Exchange.

This study explores the impact of inclusive leadership on employees' pro-social rule breaking through the dual path of psychological safety and leadership identification, as well as the moderating role of leader-member exchange in the above paths. We used questionnaires to survey 303 employees at two time points. The results show that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on employees' pro-social rule breaking, that psychological safety and leadership identification play mediating roles in this relationship, and that there is no significant difference between the mediating effects. Leader-member exchange moderates the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on pro-social rule breaking through psychological safety. That is, under a high level of leader-member exchange, inclusive leadership has a strong impact on psychological safety and pro-social rule breaking, but the moderating effect of inclusive leadership on employees' pro-social rule breaking through leadership identification is not significant. This study provides guidance for improving the vitality of employees and promoting the development of enterprise rules.

How temporal leadership boosts employee innovative job performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how temporal leadership relates to employee innovative job performance through pro-social rule breaking for efficiency (PSRB_E) and vigor. As such, it draws from both motivational and affective perspectives to investigate the way in which leaders manage employees' time to boost employee innovation at work.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a two-source survey with coworker dyads from multiple organizations in China. Two hundred and three focal employees rated temporal leadership, time pressure and vigor. Each focal employee was rated by a coworker on PSRB_E and innovative job performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping techniques are used to examine the hypothesized relationships with theRpackage for latent variable analysis (i.e. lavaan).FindingsThe results suggest that temporal leadership positively relates to employees' innovative job performance through the mediations of their PRSB_E and vigor, respectively.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first that sought to understand the effect of temporal leadership on employee innovative job performance. It also casts light upon the motivational and affective mechanisms underlying such a linkage.

Paternalistic leadership and pro-social rule breaking: The moderating roles of psychological empowerment and leader-member exchange

Paternalistic leadership and pro-social rule breaking: The moderating roles of psychological empowerment and leader-member exchange

Impact of organizational structure and social support on pro-social rule breaking: A frontline perspective

Scholars over the past two decades have shed significant light on employee pro-social rule-breaking behaviors. Yet, the organizational and contextual variables and their influence on these behavior...

Prosocial rule breaking behaviour in banking and financial sector in central India

Prosocial rule breaking behaviour (PSRB) is the deviant behaviour of employees from the rules and norms in a constructive way for the advantage of the organisation and its stakeholders. The study identifies the occurrence of prosocial rule breaking behaviour in central India. In the present paper, researchers have reported the findings of the study conducted to ascertain the factors contributing to PSRB. A structured questionnaire was used to capture responses on a five-point Likert scale for 16 statements relating to PSRB. The data obtained has been analysed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. As per previous studies, three factors were identified which are affecting PSRB towards colleagues, customer and enhancing job performance. In the current study, one more factor has been found to be affecting which is risk-taking propensity.

Prosocial rule breaking behaviour in banking and financial sector in central India

Prosocial rule breaking behaviour in banking and financial sector in central India

Patients, Protocols, and Prosocial Behavior: Rule Breaking in Frontline Health Care

Rules are essential components of organizations, especially given their foundational role in inducing organizationally preferred behavior and reducing behavioral variability among its members. Despite the existence and prevalence of these centrally important tools, rule deviation occurs. This study proposes to understand the ways in which emergency medical service (EMS) professionals break rules for prosocial purposes—to help patients. In particular, this research seeks to understand how specific organizational and personal attributes influence rule-breaking tendencies. Results indicate that aspects of ethical climate are significantly related to prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) tendencies, whereas empathy is not. In addition, this study finds that other characteristics, such as a conformist personality, risk taking, expertise, and experience on the job influence PSRB. These findings contribute to the literature on rule deviation and EMS practices and shed light on the complexity of decision making in frontline public services.

Prosocial rule breaking at the street level: the roles of leaders, peers, and bureaucracy

ABSTRACT Rules and rule behaviour are keys to understanding modern organizations. This study examines prosocial rule breaking (PSRB), a view of workplace rule violations that eschews assumptions of invariably self-interested, utility-maximizing workers. Using survey data of child welfare social workers, the study tests the influences of leaders, peers, and bureaucratic attributes on PSRB-related attitudes and behaviour. The results indicate formalization and threats of punishment diminish employees’ willingness to break rules for others while rule consistency and co-worker rule violations trigger PSRB. Findings suggest public managers must acknowledge both formal and informal organizational attributes to better understand PSRB among front line workers.

Influence of organizational citizenship behavior on prosocial rule breaking: Moral licensing perspective

Researchers have introduced the prosocial rule breaking (PSRB) concept to explain situations where employees encounter an ethical dilemma between promoting the welfare of the organization and following organizational regulations. PSRB can be regarded as ethical decision making in an organization, but few researchers have used ethical decision theories to study it. Adopting the moral licensing perspective, we argued that organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), the typical form of moral conduct within organizations, would predict PSRB, and that this relationship would be mediated by moral selfimage and moderated by intrinsic motivation for OCB. Results of our 2-wave survey of 433 Chinese employees showed that employees’ OCB had a positive effect on PSRB through the mediator of moral self-image. Additionally, when intrinsic motivation toward OCB was high, the relationship between OCB and moral self-image was amplified and gave more confidence to employees to practice PSRB. Our findings contribute to the understanding of PSRB and moral licensing theory.

ESPIRITUALIDADE, CONVICÇÃO MORAL E QUEBRA DE REGRAS PRÓ-SOCIAIS NA ÁREA DA SAÚDE

RESUMO Este estudo investigou o efeito da espiritualidade no local de trabalho dos profissionais de saúde sobre a convicção moral e quebra de regras pró-sociais. Os dados foram coletados de 315 profissionais de saúde dos três distritos principais de South Punjab, Paquistão. A validade das medidas foi determinada por meio de análise fatorial confirmatória. As relações hipotéticas foram investigadas usando modelagem de regressão estrutural (SEM). Os resultados demonstraram que o efeito da espiritualidade no local de trabalho na quebra de regras pró-sociais e na convicção moral foi significativo. No entanto, o efeito mediador da convicção moral entre espiritualidade no local de trabalho e quebra de regras pró-sociais não foi significativo. Os profissionais de saúde podem regulamentar a quebra de regras pró-sociais, classificando e promovendo os indivíduos com uma elevada espiritualidade no local de trabalho para as posições que exigem alto nível de quebra de regras pró-sociais, em vez de considerar as crenças morais pessoais dos provedores de serviços de saúde.

The paradox of public bureaucracies:Discriminatory bureaucrats in non-discriminatory bureaucracies

Bureaucracies are expected to treat customers equally and are assumed to attract people with a high Public Service Motivation (PSM). While PSM has positive effects on individual and organizational performance, a growing body of literature points out that PSM might also entail darker sides which so far have not been empirically scrutinized in detail. This article demonstrates the fundamental paradox of modern bureaucracies: People with high levels of PSM are especially vulnerable towards pro-social rule-breaking (PSRB) behavior which ultimately leads to discriminatory behavior threatening the very foundations of the bureaucratic principle. We test our theory by conducting an original vignette-based experiment replicated in three countries (Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands) with 1,239 observations in total. Our findings provide first behavioral evidence on the linear relationship between PSM and the likelihood of PSRB. Furthermore, results reveal that the relation between PSM and PSRB is moderated asymmetrically by client-based information cues: Negative cues have a larger negative effect than positive cues have a positive effect. This means that high-PSM people are not only more likely to engage in PSRB but that they also discriminate more sharply between clients that they perceive to be more deserving than their low-PSM peers. Furthermore, findings reveal that respondents abusing their discretion in this way were fully aware of the harming effect towards the organization while the benefit for the customer appeared to be a less significant motivation. In summary, this study provides evidence for a fundamental behavioral paradox at the core of modern bureaucracies and adds substantially to the literature on the dark sides of PSM, which are more diverse and have larger impact than anticipated so far.

Striving To Restrain Employee Turnover Intention Through Ethical Leadership And Pro-Social Rule Breaking

The increased turnover intention of employees has always been a dilemma for organizations. This is not only affecting the working standards of institutions but is also depriving them of thequalified and talented workforce. Turnover intention can be represented as the movement of a person from an institution across its membership boundary. Talented, highly qualified and satisfied academicians are required for the prosperity of any higher education institution. If the academicians are not motivated and satisfied with the job, the working standards in the educational institutions will fall and due objectives won’t be accomplished. Ethical leadership assumes a fundamental part of decreasing turnover intentions among employees. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of ethical leadership on employee turnover intentions through the lens of pro-social rule breaking in private sector higher education institutions of Pakistan. Correlation and regression were employed in order to test the model where survey responses were gathered from 240 academicians employed in four private sector universities of Pakistan. Results showed that there exists a negative relationship between ethical leadership and employee turnover intention and pro-social rule breaking. Furthermore, pro-social rule breaking has a positive relationship with employee turnover intention. The results of regression analysis showed that pro-social rule breaking acts as a partial mediator between ethical leadership and employee turnover intentions. Expanding on current theoretical knowledge, this study makes a significant contribution to leadership literature suggesting that firms should implement ethical leadership practices that support in reducing employee turnover intentions.

Development of Framework Linking Organizational Virtuousness and Pro-Social Rule Breaking: From the Perspective of Social Information Processing

Based on the theory of social information processing, this research develops a conceptual model linking organizational virtuousness perception and pro-social rule breaking. In this model, organizational virtuousness perception of employees positively affects the pro-social rule breaking via psychological empowerment; Proactive personality positively moderates the indirect effect of organizational virtuousness perception on pro-social rule breaking though psychological empowerment. The proposed conceptual framework reveals the functional mechanism of organizational virtuousness perception on pro-social rule breaking from cognitive perspective and discusses individual character’s moderating role, which helps identify research gap and advance further knowledge development in organizational virtuousness.

Influence mechanism of managerial pro-social rule breaking on employee behavior from the perspective of opposition between favor and reason: A cross-levels and longitudinal study

Influence mechanism of managerial pro-social rule breaking on employee behavior from the perspective of opposition between favor and reason: A cross-levels and longitudinal study

The contribution of work characteristics and risk propensity in explaining pro-social rule breaking among teachers in Wakiso District, Uganda

Orientation: This study explored the mechanisms that drive pro-social rule breaking among teachers in Ugandan private secondary schools.Research purpose: The main aim of this study was to examine the contribution of work characteristics and risk propensity in promoting pro-social rule breaking among teachers in one of the Ugandan districts that has a high number of private schools.Motivation for the study: As there is a scarcity of research on pro-social rule breaking in Uganda, this study sought to explore the concept and shed light on the mechanisms that influence this.Research design, approach and method: A quantitative research process formed the basis for this study. Two hundred and forty-two teachers from 15 private secondary schools in Wakiso District formed the targeted sample size. A response rate of 87% was registered. A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted in order to assess the influence of each of the variables on the dependent variable, by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.Main findings: The regression results showed that work characteristics were a statistically significant predictor of pro-social rule breaking, but risk propensity was not. The results finally showed that there was no moderation effect of risk propensity on the relationship between work characteristics and pro-social rule breaking.Practical implications: The schools should expect more pro-social rule-breaking tendencies when the tasks given to the teachers are complex and when the teachers operate with autonomy. The environment in which the private secondary school teachers in Uganda work, motivates them to sometimes break rules in a bid to perform better or minimise the complexity associated with work.Contribution: This study expands on current theoretical knowledge on pro-social rule breaking and provides insights into the key drivers of the same among private secondary school teachers in the Ugandan context.

Ethical leadership and pro-social rule breaking: A dual process model

Ethical leadership and pro-social rule breaking: A dual process model

Does Benevolent Leadership Increase Employee Pro-Social Rule Breaking?

For a long time, it has been held by both academics and practitioners in the field of management that the behavior of violating or breaking an organization's formal rules displayed by employees is self-interested, deviant, and detrimental to the organization. In 2006, Morrison introduced a more nuanced perspective on rule breaking, suggesting that some type of rule breaking may be motivated by positive intentions and beneficial to the organization. She further developed and empirically tested the construct of pro-social rule breaking(PSRB). The present research employed a scenario experiment and a field study to examine the effect of benevolent leadership on employee PSRB by focusing on the moderating role of organizational uncertainty and employee values(i.e. zhong-yong and power distance orientation). The scenario of the experiment described certain situation in which an employee had to decide whether or not to break a rule by placing an urgent order for a large, important customer. The study used a between-subjects design in which benevolent leadership(high or low) and organizational uncertainty(high or low) were manipulated, resulting in four versions of scenarios. Totally, 126 part-time MBA students were randomly assigned to one of the scenario versions. At the end of each scenario, participants responded to four questions which were included as checks of the organizational uncertainty and benevolent leadership manipulations. Then, they responded to five questions that assessed the likelihood that they would break the rule. Finally, respondents completed a short survey that assessed zhong-yong and power distance orientation. The results of the experiment revealed that:(1) Benevolent leadership impacted positively on employee PSRB.(2) Organizational uncertainty related positively to employee PSRB and moderated the relationship between benevolent leadership and employee PSRB, such that this relationship was weaker when organizational uncertainty was high.(3) Zhong-yong and power distance orientation had significant negative influences on employee PSRB. Meanwhile, power distance orientation also moderated the association of benevolent leadership with employee PSRB in such a way that it was stronger for employees low(versus high) in this orientation. The sample of our field study consisted of 187 employees from enterprises located in South Jiang province. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the measures were from 0.73 to 0.95, showing acceptable measurement reliabilities. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated the discriminant validity of the measurement was also satisfactory. Results of hierarchical regression modeling replicated most of those findings in the scenario experiment except the negative effect of zhong-yong on employee PSRB. As to the specific moderating patterns of the moderators, results from the two studies consistently showed that organizational uncertainty worked as a substitute for benevolent leadership to increase employee PSRB, while employee power distance orientation acted as a buffer or neutralizer to weaken the benevolent leadership-employee PSRB linkage.