When Employees Do Bad Things for Good Reasons: Examining Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviors (original) (raw)
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Journal of Applied Psychology, 2010
We examined the relationship between organizational identification and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB)-unethical behaviors conducted by employees to potentially benefit the organization. We predicted that organizational identification would be positively related to UPB and that positive reciprocity beliefs would moderate and strengthen this relationship. The results from 2 field studies support the interaction effect and show that individuals who strongly identify with their organization are more likely to engage in UPB when they hold strong positive reciprocity beliefs. Given the nature of reciprocity, our findings may suggest that highly identified employees who hold strong reciprocity beliefs may conduct UPB with an anticipation of a future reward from their organization. Theoretical and managerial implications of our results for understanding unethical behaviors are discussed.
Holistic view of unethical pro-organizational behavior: literature review
Organization Psychology, 2022
Purpose. The current study intends to use the published literature to explore the emergence and limitations of construct, specifically those that are unethical yet beneficial to the organization. Approach. We conducted an extensive literature review of 46 published papers between 2010 and 2020 using multiple sources such as Web of Science and Scopus. Findings. Literature addressed two essential characteristics of unethical behavior within an organization. Initially, market intensity, followed by misleading favorable to hierarchical behavior, is known as unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Findings also suggest that to eliminate such behavioral inclinations, organizations should clearly communicate their values and goals. Implications for practice. The current study has a lot of management implications. As past literature implies that employees are more likely to engage in UPB, firms must ensure that systems are in place to limit the chance that workers would engage in such conduct, considering it is the potential to harm an organization's reputation.
Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior (UBP): Concept and Studies Evolution
Science Journal of Business and Management, 2016
Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior was many times neglected in the organizational literature. But in the past few years, the phenomenon was introduced in the domain of organizational behavior and figures nowadays among the trendy topics of scientific interest. Several organizational scholars have conducted researches exploring the construct, and more and more scholarly papers about UPB have been published up to the current day. The present study has been developed based on examination and summary of the major works completed on Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior in order to trace the evolution of its concept since its infancy. Additionally, the paper gives readers a general review of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior studies.
Why employees do bad things: Moral disengagement and unethical organizational behavior
Personnel Psychology, 2012
We examine the influence of individuals' propensity to morally disengage on a broad range of unethical organizational behaviors. First, we develop a parsimonious, adult-oriented, valid, and reliable measure of an individual's propensity to morally disengage, and demonstrate the relationship between it and a number of theoretically relevant constructs in its nomological network. Then, in 4 additional studies spanning laboratory and field settings, we demonstrate the power of the propensity to moral disengage to predict multiple types of unethical organizational behavior. In these studies we demonstrate that the propensity to morally disengage predicts several outcomes (self-reported unethical behavior, a decision to commit fraud, a self-serving decision in the workplace, and supervisor-and coworker-reported unethical work behaviors) beyond other established individual difference antecedents of unethical organizational behavior, as well as the most closely related extant measure of the construct. We conclude that scholars and practitioners seeking to understand a broad range of undesirable workplace behaviors can benefit from taking an individual's propensity to morally disengage into account. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.
Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 2022
This article reports two studies evaluating the impact of moral intensity, work experience, and gender on the propensity (attitude, behavioral intention, and subjective norm) for unethical behavior of Venezuelan students and employees responding to different organizational scenarios, and controlling the effects of moral disengagement and empathy. One study singled out moral disengagement as a covariate, and the other did the same with empathy. In both studies, moral intensity, work experience, and gender acted as independent variables. Each study consisted of around 400 participants (totaling 801 participants in both studies): one-half were students without work experience and the other half were employees. For manipulating moral intensity, we used six scenarios describing ethically questionable situations. After reading each of the scenarios, participants answered the Multidimensional Ethics Scale to measure propensity for unethical behavior. After completing this phase, participants responded to the moral disengagement scale in Study 1 and the empathy scale in Study 2. This research did not find concluding, significant effects of moral intensity on the measures of the propensity for unethical behavior. Employees expressed higher intentions of acting unethically than students, though the effect was small (ϵ 2 Study 1 = .016. ϵ 2 Study 2 = .026). Gender had no significant effect on attitude and subjective norm; but, in behavioral intention, men's scores were significantly higher than women's in Study 1, but not in Study 2. Moral disengagement had a stronger effect than empathy on the propensity for unethical behavior (ϵ 2 moral disengagement: attitude = .225, behavioral intention = .179, subjective norm = .159. ϵ 2 empathy: attitude = .016, behavioral intention = .011, subjective norm = .010). The authors highlight the relevance of contrasting findings from less-developed countries with those from developed countries, commonly found in the literature, and suggest avenues for further research.
Research in the organizational sciences has tended to portray prosocial behavior as an unqualified positive outcome that should be encouraged in organizations. However, only recently, have researchers begun to acknowledge prosocial behaviors that help maintain an organization’s positive image in ways that violate ethical norms (e.g., misrepresenting or exaggerating the truth, concealing damaging information about the firm). Recent scandals, including Volkswagen’s emissions scandal and Penn State’s child sex abuse scandal, point to the need for research on the individual factors and situational conditions that shape the emergence of these unethical pro-organizational behaviors (UPB). Drawing on trait activation theory, we argue that the ‘‘dark’’ trait of Machiavellianism should make individuals more willing to engage in UPB. Further, we argue that this willingness will be augmented when Machiavellians hold bottomline-mentality climate perceptions (BLMCPs), or the perception that ethical standards matter less than organizational performance. Using data from 170 U.S. employees, results suggested that Machiavellians are more willing to engage in UPB, but that BLMCPs may not affect their motivation to engage in UPB. We discuss the study’s theoretical and practical implications, as well as avenues for research.
On the Effects of Ethical Climate(s) on Employees' Behavior: A Social Identity Approach
Frontiers in psychology, 2018
The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades have fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs), and Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs). Structural equation modeling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were ...
The tragedy of ethics: Why good organizations do bad things
Instead of explaining the unethical behavior of employees in terms of their bad organization (the so-called bad barrel theory), this article examines how a good organization can explain employees’ unethical behavior. The basic premise is that the more ethical an organization becomes, the higher, in some respects, is the likelihood of unethical behavior. This is due to four threaten-ing forces that become stronger when an organization becomes more ethical. Each of the forces is illustrated with two effects and each effect is ex-plained by a specific theory. This tragedy of ethics, where goodness breeds badness, opens new research directions.
Many answers have been given to the question 'Why do organizational members behave unethically?' Each answer has induced its own set of solutions to tackle unethical behavior. Among others, two streams focus on the individual actor by either proposing control and sanction mechanisms to frame the manager’s self-interested attitude or by aiming at educating people into moral agents capable of recognizing ethical issues and of acting accordingly. Two further streams focus on the actor’s context. They target organizational culture and codes of conduct or the broader institutional framework's influence. While these four streams are most often held separate, I argue that they all show specific strengths and weaknesses that can be combined to address at best the diverse situations and to frame the various actors' attitudes. A framework that integrates the four approaches of unethical behavior might therefore represent the most efficient approach to unethical behavior by covering multiple time frames, situations, and organizational member personalities. This article discusses such a framework and the specific contributions each approach can make to the other three within it. Implications for management and business ethics are also exposed in the light of various ethical issues in business.