Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior Research Articles

Standing in customers' shoes: How responsible leadership inhibits unethical pro-organizational behavior.

Although the negative impact of responsible leadership on employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior has been documented in the literature, little is known about its underlying processes and boundaries. Drawing on social information processing theory and social learning theory, we built a moderated mediation model to explain why and when unethical pro-organizational behavior could be inhibited by responsible leadership. We conducted a two-phase questionnaire survey to collect data. The empirical results based on the sample of 557 Chinese salespeople showed that customer-oriented perspective taking partially mediated the negative link between responsible leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior and that leader competence strengthened the direct effects of responsible leadership on customer-oriented perspective taking and unethical pro-organizational behavior as well as the indirect effect of responsible leadership on unethical pro-organizational behavior via customer-oriented perspective taking. These findings enrich the current understanding of how responsible leadership relates to unethical pro-organizational behavior, extend the limited literature on customer-oriented perspective taking, and offer some suggestions that managers can follow to inhibit unethical pro-organizational behavior. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Unethical pro-organizational behavior: how employee ethical ideology and unethical organizational culture contribute

PurposeThe corporate atmosphere in recent times speaks volumes about the crises of confidence and credibility brewing among professionals due to the rising incidences of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). The study developed a model to demonstrate the underlying mechanisms through which unethical organizational culture (UOC) influences UPB through the mediating roles of idealism and relativism.Design/methodology/approachUsing a cross-sectional approach, data were collected through questionnaires that were distributed to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the Plateau state in Nigeria. A total of 269 responses were obtained and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique via Smart-PLS software.FindingsThe results revealed that the relationship between UOC and UPB was significant. The indirect predictive role of UOC on UPB was established via relativism but not through idealism. The results indicate that the preponderance of UPB among SMEs is a product of UOC which breeds a relativist ideology that ultimately promotes UPB. Finally, implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.Originality/valueThis study contributes to UPB in two unique ways. First, the authors bring to the fore the critical role of UOC in the debate on UPB which has been under-explored. Second, the study also established the mediating role of relativism in the relationship between UOC and UPB.

Exploring the Antecedents of Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior (UPB): A Meta-Analysis

Exploring the Antecedents of Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior (UPB): A Meta-Analysis

Support to sin: a moderated mediation model of perceived organizational support's effect on unethical pro-organizational behavior among Indian nationals

PurposeThe present research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism underlying the potential harmful outcomes of perceived organizational support (POS) in instigating unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Integrating social exchange theory with social identity theory, the present study proposes the indirect effect of one's POS as the mechanism that leads an individual to commit UPB via organizational identification (OI). The authors also expect the role of an individual's moral identity (MI) in moderating the relationship between OI and UPB.Design/methodology/approachThe current research tests the proposed moderated mediation model by using two survey-based field studies consisting of 316 and 178 responses in study 1 and 2, respectively from working professionals of various organizations in India.FindingsThe current research finds support for the proposed moderated mediation model where the POS leads to UPB through the indirect effects of OI. Also, an individual's MI plays a key role in moderating one's engagement in UPB.Originality/valueThe current research integrates social exchange theory and social identity theory in the UPB literature in a logical and coherent manner. Furthermore, the current research also explains the role of multiple identities in enhancing and attenuating one's engagement in UPB.

How does job insecurity cause unethical pro-organizational behavior? The mediating role of impression management motivation and the moderating role of organizational identification.

This study aims to examine the effect of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity on unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), focusing on the mediating effect of impression management motivation and the moderating effect of organizational identification. A two-wave questionnaire survey is conducted, and data from 254 employees of Chinese enterprises are used to test the research hypotheses. Empirical results show that: (1) Quantitative job insecurity has a significant positive effect on UPB, while positive effect of qualitative job insecurity on UPB is insignificant. (2) Quantitative job insecurity positively affects impression management motivation and increases UPB. Although the direct effect of qualitative job insecurity on UPB is insignificant, it positively affects UPB through impression management motivation. (3) Organizational identification plays a positive moderation role in the relationship between impression management motivation and employees’ UPB, that is, high-degree organizational identification leads to a strong effect of impression management motivation on UPB; furthermore, organizational identification moderates the mediating role of impression management motivation in the relationships between quantitative, qualitative job insecurity, and UPB, such that the effect is strong when organizational identification is high, rather than low. This study compares the effect of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity on employees’ UPB, reveals that impression management motivation is the key mechanism of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity affecting UPB, and points out the moderating effect of organizational identification, which offers implications for organizational management practices.

Performance goal orientation and unethical pro-organizational behavior: a moderated mediation model

Existing unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature suggests that it includes two definitional components: committing to achieving beneficial consequences for the organization and violating standards of ethical behavior. Existing research examining individual differences’ effects on UPB has mainly focused on moral traits and largely ignored performance-related ones, such as performance goal orientation. To address this theoretical blind spot, drawing from the general risk-taking perspective, we investigated how and when performance goal orientations shape employee UPB. We first conducted a business simulation study (Study 1) with 86 undergraduate students and found that performance-approach goal orientation had a positive effect on UPB engagement. Next, we sampled 446 employees from 93 teams (Study 2). Results showed that the relationship between performance-approach goal orientation and UPB was mediated by risk taking. Furthermore, performance-avoidance goal orientation was negatively related to risk taking and subsequent UPB for individuals perceive lower levels of UPB injunctive norm induced by higher ethical leadership. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications, and offer several directions for future research.

Why do good soldiers in good organizations behave wrongly? The vicarious licensing effect of perceived corporate social responsibility

PurposeWhile most corporate social responsibility (CSR) research has focused on its positive effects, the potential “dark side” of CSR has received scant attention. Grounded in vicarious moral licensing theory and insights from related literature, the current study examines how employees' perceptions of external CSR could result in unintentional negative consequences like unethical pro-organizational behavior via psychological entitlement. The study also investigates the direct and conditional effects of private self-awareness.Design/methodology/approachA two-wave survey of 609 full-time employees from various occupations was conducted to empirically test the hypotheses. Several techniques and remedies were applied to control the quality of the sample data and mitigate the effects of potential common method bias.FindingsThe results demonstrate that unethical pro-organizational behavior can be an unintentional negative outcome of perceived external CSR, and psychological entitlement mediates the relationship.Research limitations/implicationsThis work contributes to the moral licensing literature by examining vicarious moral licensing in the work domain. It offers several new and significant implications for research on CSR, psychological entitlement, and unethical pro-organizational behavior. The results suggest that managers should be mindful of unethical pro-organizational behavior as a potential negative consequence of external CSR engagement.Originality/valueThis study is among the first attempts to examine vicarious moral licensing in the work domain and investigates a largely neglected research area – the negative aspect of external CSR.

A contingency perspective of pro-organizational motives, unethical pro-organizational behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior.

Although the effects of pro-organizational motives on pro-organizational behaviors [i.e., unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)] and their boundaries have been explored to some extent, extant studies are rather piecemeal and in need of synthesis and extension. Based on prior motivational research on pro-organizational behaviors, we developed a comprehensive contingent model in which moral identity and impression management motives would moderate the links between pro-organizational motives, UPB, and OCB. Adopting a time-lagged design, we collected data from 218 salespeople in an internet technology service company in China. Results showed that pro-organizational motives were positively related to UPB and OCB. Moral identity weakened the impact of pro-organizational motives on UPB but strengthened the influence of pro-organizational motives on OCB. Furthermore, we found that impression management motives strengthened the effects of pro-organizational motives on UPB and OCB, and the interaction of impression management motives and pro-organizational motives was stronger on UPB than on OCB. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

The duplicitous effect of organizational identification: applying social identity theory to identify joint relations with workplace social courage and unethical pro-organizational behaviors

ABSTRACT The value of courage has been discussed for over two millennia; however, courage remains understudied in empirical research relative to its potential workplace influence. The current article applies social identity theory (SIT) to hypothesize that antecedents of social courage do not only relate to overtly beneficial outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that organizational identification and moral identity not only relate to social courage, but also to unethical pro-organizational behaviors. We also use SIT to hypothesize that moral identity moderates these relations. Our study supports each of these proposals, with the exception of the moderating influence of moral identity on the relation of organizational identification and workplace social courage. The results demonstrate that SIT is a viable lens to understand courage, broadening the theoretical scope surrounding the construct. We also demonstrate that some antecedents of courage may produce duplicitous effects, and practitioners should not assume that courage’s antecedents are always beneficial.

When Do Supervisors Punish Unethical Pro-organizational behaviors: the Role of Identity and Goal

Given that unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) violates moral standards but benefits the organization at the same time, responses to this behavior could be equivocal although it is supposed to be punished. Previous research, however, has centered on antecedents of UPB, less is known about its consequences, especially how subordinates’ UPB is responded by supervisors. Drawing on the human information processing model, this paper aims to explain when supervisors perceive subordinate UPB in a negative way, and further engage in negative leading behaviors as punishments for UPB. Results of a multi-wave, multiple-source survey suggest that subordinates’ UPB are most negatively related to supervisors’ trust when supervisors’ moral identity is prominent and their goals are congruent with the group. Furthermore, results show that reduced trust ultimately elicits abusive supervisor behavior. These findings extend knowledge on consequences of UPB and provide important insights into supervisors’ leading behavior from a bottom-up perspective.

A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Antecedents of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

In this study, we conduct the meta-analysis of the antecedents of the Unethical Pro Organizational Behavior (UPB). Analysis of 168 studies from 125 research papers published in the last decade results in the identification of most critical antecedents of UPB. The statistically significant effect sizes of various antecedents helped us to determine the level of importance in predicting UPB where individual level variables ranked most critical followed by leader-induced variables and then organizational level variables. This aided to reconcile the inconsistencies between various variables and their role in instigating UPB. Further, the meta-analysis also contributes to deciphering the core nature of UPB by systematically and objectively comparing the voluntary negative and positive workplace behaviors. Theoretical contributions along with practical implications are also mentioned in the paper. This study also discussed various avenues for future research to advance the UPB literature.

You Raise Me Up and I Reciprocate: Linking Empowering Leadership to OCB and UPB

Although empowering leadership is generally thought to be beneficial to employees and organizations, an emerging stream of work shows its potential negative impact. Drawing upon social exchange theory, we propose an integrated model that simultaneously examines the benefits and costs of empowering leadership. Specifically, we propose that team-level empowering leadership can lead to both organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). We also examine the mediating role of employee workplace status and the moderating role of felt obligation in these processes. In data obtained from 301 employees and 57 leaders across multiple time points, we found that team-level empowering leadership would lead to employee OCB and UPB through workplace status. However, the positive indirect impact of team-level empowering leadership on OCB was significant only when employees’ felt obligation was high, and the indirect effect of team-level empowering leadership on UPB was positive and significant only when employees’ felt obligation was low. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as future research directions.

Work Engagement as Remedy of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

Unethical behavior within organizations is a very prevalent and costly problem. This study investigates employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), which is unethical behavior with the intention to help the organization. Leveraging social exchange theory and social exchange theory, this research evaluates the direct relationship between organizational commitment and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and the indirect relationship through employee work engagement. The theoretical model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling based on a sample of 499 U.S. service sector employees. Results indicate that while affective commitment can motivate employees to engage in UPB, if the commitment is channeled into work engagement, it can reduce employees’ motivation to engage in UPB. As such, the findings extend on the UPB literature, while providing practitioners with a clearer understanding of the importance of monitoring organizational commitment alongside work engagement.

#BlueBloods: Fictive Kinship, and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior in Police Organizations

We report an internet-based ethnographic study which examines how unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB)–in this case, violence–emerges as an expression of a profession’s moral identity. We specifically examine the professional culture of law enforcement officers in the United States. We argue that fictive kinship metaphors (the use of family language between unrelated people) facilitate increased moral identity overlap within the organization. Using an ethnographic approach that includes publicly available police-published documents, we find that fictive kinship metaphors can alleviate–even entirely remove–moral tensions one may feel when committing unethical pro-organizational acts. Indeed, unethical pro-organizational behavior can be purely morally motivated. Previous discussions of organizational ethics have highlighted the importance of morality in preventing unethical behavior. However, we show that a strong moral identity that is widely shared in a profession can have detrimental consequences for members of the public and other organizational stakeholders

Differential Consequences of Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior: Dual-path Mechanism

Grounding upon relevant theories and insights (i.e., self-completion, self-consistency, moral licensing, and moral cleansing), we propose and test a broader framework that can explain the effects of UPB, together with its underlying processes and contextual factors. Precisely, we suggest a dual-path mechanism (state of self-esteem vs. state of guilt) of UPB consequences. We argue that UPB can have both desirable (volunteering and prosocial behavior) and undesirable (subsequent UPB and instigated incivility) consequences due to its mixed features (pro-organizational but unethical). We also examine the conditional roles of potential variables within an organization (corporate social responsibility [CSR]) and an individual (moral identity) that can influence the consequences of UPB. The results from two studies with distinct designs (Study 1 – experiment-based, and Study 2 – multi-wave survey-based) suggest empirical evidence for the proposed model. The implications and limitations are discussed, and future research considerations are identified. Keywords: unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB); state of self-esteem; state of guilt; volunteering; instigated incivility; corporate social responsibility (CSR)

How Leaders Drive Followers' Unethical Behavior

Numerous organizational scandals have implicated leaders who have encouraged employees to advance organizational objectives through unethical means. However, leaders’ encouragement of unethical behaviors is under-examined in leadership research. We define leader immorality encouragement (LIE) as an employee’s perception that his or her leader encourages unethical behaviors on behalf of the organization. Across four studies, we found that: (1) LIE promotes employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior; (2) this relationship is mediated by employees’ moral disengagement and reward expectancy; (3) LIE, via moral disengagement, promotes employees’ self-serving unethical behavior; and (4) the association between LIE and unethical behavior is stronger when the leader and the employee have a high-quality exchange relationship and the employee perceives the leader as having high organizational status. Our set of findings shed light on leaders’ attempts to further organization objectives by encouraging unethical behavior.

A Moral Balancing Perspective on Employees’ Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

The current paper seeks to develop and test a serial mediation model linking employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and their consequent pro-self and pro-customer deviance. Drawing upon moral balancing theory, cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, and affective events theory, we examine the moral licensing effect of employee UPB on their organizational deviance through feelings of pride and psychological entitlement. Simultaneously, we investigate the moral cleansing effect of employee UPB on their customer-directed prosocial rule breaking via perceived loss of moral credits and feelings of guilt. Additionally, we examine the moderating role of external attribution of UPB on the aforementioned indirect effects. The results based on 340 full-time employees and their supervisors support the proposed serial mediated relationships. The findings further indicate that the strength of those indirect effects varies depending on employees’ external attribution of UPB. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Framework of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Consequences, Conditions, and Processes

Recently, workplace behaviors that are simultaneously pro-organizational and anti-social have attracted increased scholarly attention. Although prior research on such ubiquitous workplace behaviors has added insightful contributions to the literature, current research is limited to a few topics, such as predicting unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Therefore, in this study, the authors address underdeveloped research areas by proposing a framework that explains the consequences of UPB. First, by reviewing the literature and integrating theories, this study proposes a holistic process model of UPB consequences. Second, the study further explores the mechanisms that explain the links between UPB and its outcomes. Third, it suggests potential variables within individuals and organizations that might influence the consequences of UPB. The article also contributes to the research on within-individual co-occurrence of unethical and ethical behaviors. Finally, the authors develop propositions, discuss the implications, and identify future research considerations.

How Do Entrepreneurs Respond to a Crisis? Approach-Avoidance and Broaden-and-Build Perspective

In the face of a crisis, some entrepreneurs seek opportunities to thrive, whereas others strive to protect themselves from threats to survival. Curiously, there has been little examination of when and how entrepreneurs respond differently to an entrepreneurial crisis, defined as an unanticipated, impactful, and urgent event in an entrepreneur’s business operations. We posit that entrepreneurs respond in either a positive manner through creatively combining resources at hand (i.e., bricolage) or a negative manner through violating ethical values to protect the venture’s short-term interest (i.e., unethical pro-organizational behavior or UPB). Drawing upon approach-avoidance motivation and broaden-and-build theory, we examine when and how an entrepreneurial crisis leads to these different responses. We conducted a five-month longitudinal study of 100 entrepreneurs (482 observations). We found that when entrepreneur’s approach motivation was high rather than low, entrepreneurial crisis was related to an increase in bricolage and a decrease in intention to quit via increased interest. On the other hand, when entrepreneur’s avoidance motivation was high rather than low, entrepreneurial crisis was related to an increase in UPB and intention to quit via increased anger. Our study advances research on entrepreneurial responses to crisis by showing when entrepreneurs respond creatively or unethically and the associated mechanisms of these responses.

Career Hurdle or Booster: Consequences of Ambition on Promotability Evaluations

Existing research has shown that ambition acts as a personality variable for better understanding employees’ behaviors and work outcomes. However, research on how it is displayed and its impact is in its infancy. In this study, we propose that an ambitious employee may show more self-improvement behaviors, so a supervisor may consider them more promotable. An ambitious employee may also display unethical pro-organizational behaviors to obtain more money or power, thereby becoming less promotable. We adopt construal level theory to explain this dual mediating process in which employees consider either immediate or global rewards more, thereby determining their ambition realization pathway. The empirical results help us understand how career ambition helps or hinders career promotion. Our study provides significant theoretical and practical contributions to both ambition literature and construal-level theory.