Workplace Misconduct Research Articles

Perceived personal and contextual impunity: Conceptualization, antecedents, and implications for workplace misconduct.

Scholarship on impunity has centered around quantifiable prosecutions related to criminal acts that often occur outside of the workplace. We offer insights into the psychological experience of impunity by shifting the focus to organizational settings and embedding impunity within discussions of workplace misconduct. We distinguish between (a) perceived personal impunity, which reflects employees' belief that they will not face punishment for their own misconduct; and (b) perceived contextual impunity, which reflects employees' belief that their organization will not punish employees for their misconduct. We develop and validate measures for each impunity perception and establish a preliminary nomological network by investigating factors that influence each perception and their relationship with workplace misconduct. Consequently, we offer nuanced insights into how distinct impunity perceptions result in workplace misconduct relative to other established predictors. Our perceived workplace impunity measures provide a valuable tool for assessing impunity perceptions and predicting instances of misconduct. In addition, they offer practical insights into impunity's functions within organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

CEO Risk Taking Equity Incentives and Workplace Misconduct

CEO Risk Taking Equity Incentives and Workplace Misconduct

Coworkers Behaving Badly: How the Dark Triad Influences Responses to Witnessing Workplace Misconduct.

The "bad-begets-bad" phenomenon describes how witnessed or perceived misconduct in an organization promotes mental states and behavior that encourage further misconduct. Based in two perspectives on how the Dark Triad (DT) constructs (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) differentiate, we proposed their roles in contributing to the bad-begets-bad phenomenon. A convenience sample of college students (N = 454) completed an online study in which they read vignettes depicting workplace misconduct wherein a reporting incentive was (incentive condition) or was not (no-incentive condition) offered. Subsequently, they reported their likelihood of possessing mental states (e.g., goals) and engaging in behavior broadly reflective of the bad-begets-bad phenomenon. Lastly, they completed the Short Dark Triad (SD3) questionnaire to assess narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. We used a series of step-wise regression models to analyze the data. Consistent with the "malicious two" perspective on the DT, only Machiavellianism and psychopathy consistently predicted mental states and behavior reflective of the bad-begets-bad phenomenon. Also, consistent with the "cautious and adaptable Machiavellian perspective," only Machiavellianism interacted with the incentive condition to influence people's willingness to report misconduct (i.e., not further promote misconduct). Broadly, the data contribute to understanding the role of the DT in organizational settings and support two perspectives on how the DT should operate in the context of witnessing workplace misconduct.

“Ethical leadership: a dual path model for fostering ethical voice through relational identification, psychological safety, organizational identification and psychological ownership”

Purpose This study aims to identify the impact of ethical leadership on ethical voice by determining two paths covering relational identification and psychological safety. The first path focused on relational identification and psychological safety. Alternatively, the second path focused on organizational identification and psychological ownership leading to ethical voice. The specific objective of the study is to develop and test an integrated model of ethical leadership. Design/methodology/approach The objectives were achieved through the adoption of quantitative research techniques. Two hundred forty-eight samples were collected from the banking sector using quantitative research techniques, and data was gathered through a self-administrated questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used through AMOS to generate the results and test hypotheses. Findings The results suggested a significant impact of ethical leadership on ethical voice, while the other paths’ results, such as relational identification, psychological safety, organizational identification and psychological ownership, suggested partial mediation. The study result adds new insights into ethical leadership and social exchange theory since it tested overlooked paths in the literature, such as relational identification and psychological safety. Research limitations/implications The research highlights the significance of ethical voice as a desirable organizational behavior. Ethical voice contributes to a culture of accountability, transparency and ethical decision-making. Organizations should establish channels and platforms for employees to voice ethical concerns and suggestions. This may involve regular feedback sessions, anonymous reporting mechanisms and protection policies for whistleblowers. Leaders should actively encourage and value ethical voices as a valuable contribution to the ethical climate of the organization. Practical implications The study found that ethical leaders influence their followers in such a way that they adopt ethical behavior. It is also validated that organizational ethics are shared by employees who interact with ethical leaders. So, departments should train such leaders because ethical leadership positively affects followers’ attitudes and behaviors, and organizations should encourage ethical behavior in supervisors and subordinates. The study also found that relational and organizational identification helps employees develop psychological capabilities, which leads to reporting workplace misconduct. The current study tested these mechanisms collectively and found that ethical leadership significantly contributes to ethical voice. Social implications The current study highlighted the role of ethical leaders in promoting ethical behavior, improving employee well-being and engagement, cultivating collaboration and inclusion, and making a contribution to the overall ethical climate within organizations and society as a whole. Organizations can have a positive impact on the social fabric by cultivating a culture of ethics, respect and social responsibility if they make these considerations their top priorities. Originality/value The current study is unique since it is intended to develop and test an integrated model of ethical leadership and ethical voice. This research combines an integrated model, focusing on employees’ identities and self-concepts and examining ethical voice as a behavioral outcome.

Music as Magic

Music as Magic

Oil price uncertainty, workplace misconduct, and cash holding

Using a novel and comprehensive dataset on penalties imposed by several US federal agencies for workplace law violations, we find that US firms are less likely to violate employee-related laws and receive associated penalties when oil price uncertainty (OPU) increases. This evidence results from two potential channels: precautionary motive and improved board monitoring. First, firms increase discretionary safety expenditure, and second, they increase the board of directors' involvement in the safety and compliance committee. Further, the evidence is not stemmed from other alternatives, such as reduced production or employment. A firm reduces workplace misconduct more when it is financially constrained, incurs a higher cost of goods sold, and belongs to the energy industry. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns and alternative OPU measurements. Moreover, we document that the positive effect of oil price uncertainty on cash holdings is attenuated if firms reduce workplace violations and associated penalties.

How General is General Strain Theory? An Inquiry of Workplace Deviance in Iran

Occupational deviance is one of the most rampant and alarming phenomena in the workplace. It can have negative effects on the individual employee, the organization, the profession, and the larger society. Therefore, it is important to better understand the etiology of such behavior in the hopes of providing solutions to reduce it. One such theory that may provide a conceptual framework to help understand workplace deviance is Agnew's general strain theory. As such, the main goal of this research was to examine the predictive utility of general strain theory in explaining workplace deviance. Using a sample of 336 private bankers in Iran, the findings suggest that the important theoretical concepts of workplace strain, subjective strain, negative emotion, and deviant motivation all predicted workplace misconduct. Consistent with the theory, additional results demonstrated important mediated relationships, such that strain was indirectly related to workplace deviance through negative emotions and deviant motivation. Specific results, policy implications, and study limitations are discussed.

Review Of The Scoping: The Value Of Diversity Management In Preventing Deviant Behavior At Work

Reviews of the literature on diversity management and workplace misconduct are still incredibly uncommon. Given the requirement for appropriate handling to stop irregular conduct at work (organizations; companies, government institutions, MSMEs). This scoping review's objective is to summarize the literature on the value of diversity management in avoiding workplace deviance. The scoping study adheres to the Arksey and O'Malley Steps. (2005). The scoping review used has 5 steps, including identifying research topics, finding pertinent studies, Specifically, (1) formulating research questions, (2) locating pertinent studies, (3) choosing studies, (4) outlining data, and (5) gathering, describing, and disclosing findings. Over 11 years, this research was reviewed using 3 electronic databases: Taylor dan Francis, Wiley dan Emerald. (2013-2023). Corruption, the giving of gifts or bribes, and gossip are among the categories of deviant behavior in the workplace that were identified, and all of these categories have the potential to negatively impact organizational performance, according to the findings of the scoping review. Gender, race, and culture are three types of diversity that are particularly susceptible to the issue of aberrant behavior in the workplace. Therefore, management must provide support and focus, particularly to human resource managers who are responsible for managing diversity in the workplace.

Do moral disengagers experience guilt following workplace misconduct? Consequences for emotional exhaustion and task performance

SummaryAccording to Bandura, moral disengagement facilitates misconduct by minimizing feelings of guilt that normally arise when one contemplates wrongdoing. While trait moral disengagement has been negatively associated with anticipatory guilt, scholars have yet to fully consider its impact on guilt post‐misconduct. In this paper, we examine the indirect effects of trait moral disengagement on post‐misconduct guilt, and downstream effects on employees' mental health and performance. Lastly, we explore the moderating role of post‐misconductstatemoral disengagement in shaping the effects of trait moral disengagement. Across three studies, we find that trait moral disengagement ispositivelylinked to guilt following interpersonal deviance, unethical work behavior, and objective cheating behavior. Further, trait moral disengagement is indirectly, positively linked to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to executive function (specifically, the capacity to inhibit distraction during tasks). In a fourth study, we find that trait moral disengagement is positively associated with guilt and subsequent emotional exhaustion when individuals employ little to no state moral disengagement immediately post‐misconduct. In contrast, trait moral disengagement is negatively linked to guilt and emotional exhaustion when individuals employ state moral disengagement post‐misconduct. We discuss the implications of these findings for advancing moral disengagement theory and research.

Race, fitness-to-practice and the experience of trainee educators

This study examines the reasons behind Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students’ over-representation within fitness-to-practice (FTP) processes at a university in the north of England. Referrals to FTP are intended to rectify the underperformance of students, acting as a workplace misconduct procedure, applied in an education context. The phenomenon itself replicates trends of racial disadvantage across education and the workplace. Some suggested causes for these trends include capital, racial discomfort and structural inequality discussed in the literature review. In this study, the experiences of BAME students on placement in education settings are examined to provide insights into the disparity in FTP referrals, using a phenomenological approach. This involved semi-structured interviews to capture subjective first-person accounts from the target sample. These were evaluated using thematic analysis, and the findings were considered using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a lens.The findings demonstrated two opposing accounts that were united by their conception of racial identity. The research found that BAME students’ placement experiences may be in response to an intersectional convergence of race and the status of the role they occupy within the placement. A clear link between FTP and placement experiences could not be established, but the CRT perspective points to issues around racism, white neutrality and supremacy active in BAME students’ placement settings. 

A meta-analytic investigation of the antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences of moral disengagement at work.

Moral disengagement refers to a set of cognitive tactics people employ to sidestep moral self-regulatory processes that normally prevent wrongdoing. In this study, we present a comprehensive meta-analytic review of the nomological network of moral disengagement at work. First, we test its dispositional and contextual antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences, including ethics (workplace misconduct and organizational citizenship behaviors [OCBs]) and non-ethics outcomes (turnover intentions and task performance). Second, we examine Bandura's postulation that moral disengagement fosters misconduct by diminishing moral cognitions (moral awareness and moral judgment) and anticipatory moral self-condemning emotions (guilt). We also test a contrarian view that moral disengagement is limited in its capacity to effectively curtail moral emotions after wrongdoing. The results show that Honesty-Humility, guilt proneness, moral identity, trait empathy, conscientiousness, idealism, and relativism are key individual antecedents. Further, abusive supervision and perceived organizational politics are strong contextual enablers of moral disengagement, while ethical leadership and organizational justice are relatively weak deterrents. We also found that narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and psychological entitlement are key theoretical correlates, although moral disengagement shows incremental validity over these "dark" traits. Next, moral disengagement was positively associated with workplace misconduct and turnover intentions, and negatively related to OCBs and task performance. Its positive impact on misconduct was mediated by lower moral awareness, moral judgment, and anticipated guilt. Interestingly, however, moral disengagement was positively related to guilt and shame post-misconduct. In sum, we find strong cumulative evidence for the pertinence of moral disengagement in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Silencing at Work: Sexual Harassment, Workplace Misconduct and NDAs

Abstract This article draws on qualitative analysis of a small interview study and of oral evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee (WESC) of the UK Parliament, to explore and contextualize the use in the United Kingdom of NDAs in settlements to silence allegations and experiences of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct. This demonstrates the central place of NDAs in the failure of individualist individualized workplace protections effectively to combat this behaviour. Several factors emerge as potentially significant to the ubiquity and substantive content of NDAs in settlements: the influence of modern, technologically inflected routinization and sheer paperwork within organizations and lawyering; interactions between the law in practice and long-standing economic, social and cultural means of subordination, including of women and racialized groups. Illustrations comprise, first, employers’ systemic dominance, mediated by lawyers, being enacted and reinforced through frequent imposition of NDAs, including to protect serial wrongdoers, and, secondly, that the shame and career risk attached to people who experience and complain of ill treatment (not alleged wrongdoers) mean claimants themselves often need the protection of NDAs in settlements. Still, suggestions in the evidence of some organizations altering their use of NDAs provides an invaluable opportunity for future research to illuminate the drivers and long-term consequence of this legalized silencing and of what ought to be done about it. Organizational variety also shows that employers are already in a position differently to reconcile the innate tensions the data exposed between individual, employer, and societal interests in whether mistreatment at work is silenced or exposed. This leads to my final argument that, whatever legal reform occurs, employers and their lawyers ought already to take the obvious first step towards changing the culture, of shifting their default position away from routinely using law to silence complaints about sexual harassment and workplace misconduct. If employers are not even willing to take this small initial step, and their lawyers to back them up, this will raise serious questions about current public commitments finally to tackle workplace wrongdoing, and grave doubts that anything much is going to change in this dimension of working life.

Organizational Change: Where Have All the Leaders Gone When Creating Anti-Harassment Cultures

Media coverage of recent high-profile sexual harassment scandals and subsequent #MeToo publicity confirms that sexual harassment continues to plague corporate cultures. Organizations have previously relied on professional training and policy creations to address workplace misconduct. These initiatives are primarily predicated on legal and compliance efforts to reduce misconduct and maintain more harassment free environments. Even with calls from regulatory agencies and media coverage, corporate cultures do not appear to have changed. This exploratory investigation suggests that organizations continue to rely on established methods of addressing sexual harassment and should utilize behavioral modeling to improve corporate cultures. Ideas forwarded within this paper will begin discussions regarding the use of behavioral modeling by leaders to solidify improved anti-harassment cultures.

Respond and Resolve: A Critical Feminist Inquiry for Technologies of Sexual Governance

From higher education to workplaces, institutions are increasingly adopting data-driven and semiautomated technologies to facilitate, manage, and arbitrate sexual affairs. These largely US-based systems, which I term “technologies of sexual governance,” are encoded with and reify particular ideologies about sexual (mis)conduct, and thus call for a critical feminist inquiry about their cultural, political, and moral implications for advancing a feminist sexual politics. Drawing from Halley et al.’s “governance feminism” framework, this article makes the case that a critical feminist inquiry into technologies of sexual governance must take into account the co-constitutive nature of feminist sexual politics and technology. Specifically, I argue that critical inquiries must begin by interrogating which feminist ideologies about sex and power gain purchase with and through particular computational logics and form. To demonstrate this approach, I offer two ways of reading feminist scholarly and popular responses to “antirape technologies” that capture both readings’ shortcomings, and I propose a third approach that captures the cultural work that particular feminist ideologies and technologies mutually perform. This article concludes by demonstrating how the third approach can advance a feminist analysis of workplace misconduct management softwares.

How do leaders foster morally courageous behavior in employees? Leader role modeling, moral ownership, and felt obligation

SummaryRecent trends in the academic literature indicate growing interest in bottom‐up strategies for addressing workplace misconduct. Scholars argue that leaders may empower employees to speak up and engage in morally courageous behaviors (MCB) when they witness transgressions. In this research, we integrate social cognitive theory and social exchange theory to explain how and when leaders—in their capacities as role models and organizational representatives—promote employee MCB. In Study 1, we find that leader ethical role modeling influences MCB by nurturing employee moral ownership and a sense of obligation to the organization. We show that the path from moral ownership to MCB is stronger for employees with high (versus low) moral efficacy. In Study 2, we find similar results with respect to the roles of safety‐specific moral ownership and felt obligation in explaining how leader safety role modeling influences safety‐related whistleblowing, a specific form of MCB. We also replicate the moderating effect of moral efficacy on the moral ownership—whistleblowing link. However, we find an unexpected negative moderating effect on the felt obligation—whistleblowing link. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding and promoting morally courageous behaviors in the workplace.

Instagram as a Marketing Tool for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residencies: Overcoming Resident Recruitment Challenges in the Year of COVID-19

Instagram as a Marketing Tool for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residencies: Overcoming Resident Recruitment Challenges in the Year of COVID-19

Organizational Change: Where Have All the Leaders Gone When Creating Anti-Harassment Cultures

Media coverage of recent high-profile sexual harassment scandals and subsequent #MeToo publicity confirms that sexual harassment continues to plague corporate cultures. Organizations have previously relied on professional training and policy creations to address workplace misconduct. These initiatives are primarily predicated on legal and compliance efforts to reduce misconduct and maintain more harassment free environments. Even with calls from regulatory agencies and media coverage, corporate cultures do not appear to have changed. This exploratory investigation suggests that organizations continue to rely on established methods of addressing sexual harassment and should utilize behavioral modeling to improve corporate cultures. Ideas forwarded within this paper will begin discussions regarding the use of behavioral modeling by leaders to solidify improved anti-harassment cultures.

The relationship between organisational justice and police officer attitudes toward misconduct

ABSTRACT To address police misconduct, law enforcement agencies traditionally have used deterrence-based methods–in the form of ‘external controls’, which monitor and punish unacceptable behaviour. Some scholars, however, claim that ‘internal controls’ are more effective for addressing workplace misconduct and these controls are produced when employees perceive a greater degree of organisational justice within their agencies. Using survey data from 15,807 police officers from 101 agencies, this study tests whether (a) organisational justice impacts officers’ attitudinal support for misconduct, (b) organisational commitment is the mechanism that mediates the relationship, and (c) elements of command-and-control enhance or detract from the power of organisational justice to reduce attitudinal support for misconduct. Results suggest that organisational justice has both a direct and indirect (through organisational commitment) effect on officers’ assessments of misconduct and that elements of command-and-control can enhance the power of organisational justice to reduce attitudinal support for misconduct among police officers.

Breaking the Silent Treatment


 
 
 The dramatic revelations of the #MeToo movement have ex- posed the extent to which workplace sexual harassment is en- demic and concealed across different industries. #MeToo has also shed light on the use of non-disclosure agreements (“NDAs”) by harassers to conceal their pattern of repeated mis- conduct. While there has been strong public condemnation of NDAs in the wake of the #MeToo movement, there is limited case law on the question of whether contracts such as NDAs are legally enforceable when used to settle claims of sexual har- assment that do not amount to criminal conduct.
 While federal and state legislatures continue to debate the benefits of legislating against such agreements, this Note ana- lyzes the viability of the common law public policy analysis to hold such NDAs unenforceable. Given that most states do not have specific statutes directly addressing sexual harassment NDAs, courts should look to a broad range of state legislation as relevant in considering the public policy interests counseling toward finding such NDAs unenforceable. Accordingly, this Note analyzes public policy considerations derived from three types of state law: restrictions on the use of NDAs in instances of sexual harassment, prohibitions of workplace harassment, and limitations on the concealment of public hazards.
 
 
 
 Even in states without any such legislation, this Note urges state courts, when determining whether to enforce sexual har- assment NDAs, to more actively weigh the benefits of enforcing the contractual will of private parties against potential harms to the public welfare. Workplace sexual harassment is a public policy issue that is worsened by the continued use of NDAs. In concealing workplace sexual misconduct, NDAs prevent soci- ety, through private and state actors, from addressing the problem itself and threaten public safety and welfare by allow- ing offenders to potentially harm future workers. Without NDAs as protection, companies will be exposed to reputational damage and potential shareholder litigation when sexual har- assment news becomes public knowledge. Indeed, this threat of future reputational harm could be an effective way to encour- age corporations to change their internal policies relating to workplace misconduct.
 
 
 
 
 

The evolution of unethical behavior engagement amongst longshoremen in France: A 70-year perspective

Our study builds theory about why employees’ engagement in workplace misconduct changes over time. Data collected from 72 interviews with longshoremen, their employers, and port officials in two French ports, supplemented with 70 years of archival data revealed how factors from both the organizational context and greater societal context combine to create a setting in which the seeds of misconduct persist even as the type of misconduct itself transforms. We have three primary findings. First, we find that strain and social control play distinct roles in inciting and allowing unethical behavior. Second, we find ostracism at the societal level plays a critical role in driving societal-targeted misconduct. Third, we find that generational “carry-over effects” from earlier periods’ strain and ostracism account for instances of misconduct left unexplained by classical theories of crime and ostracism.