The Antecedents Of Employees' Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior In The Workplace

Unethical pro-organizational behavior refers to "the actions that are intended to promote the effective functioning of the organization and violate core societal values,mores,laws,or standards of proper conduct".How to effectively prevent and control unethical pro-organizational behavior in the workplace is an important issue of both theory and practice.In recent years,with the rapid development of Chinese economy and the advancement of internet technology,enterprises are facing with a more competitive environment and more uncertainty.Driven by economic interests,enterprises pay more attention to whether employees can serve the interests of enterprises,but often ignore whether employees are violating social morality while helping enterprises make profits.However,when some employees caused the company to face bankruptcy or even other serious social influences because of engaging in unethical pro-organizational behavior,people gradually realized the seriousness of the consequences of such behavior.Therefore,to explore the antecedents of this behavior,we can curb such behavior from the source and achieve the purpose of effectively preventing and controlling such behavior.Through reviewing and commenting on the formation of unethical pro-organizational behavior,this study found the deficiency of existing research on the unethical pro-organizational behavior from the aspect of individual factors and situational factors.Individual factors:there has been no consistent framework on the individual factors of the formation of unethical pro-organizational behavior.Situational factors:leadership is a strong situational factor in the organizational environment,and leaders' attitudes and behaviors have an important impact on employee behavior.Previous study focuses on the relationship of leadership styles and employee' unethical pro-organizational behavior,lacking of considering the influence of leaders' frame of mind on employee,unethical pro-organizational behavior.Further more,there is not much attention had been devoted to examine the contagion of individuals' unethical pro-organizational behavior.Three different sub-studies had been carried out to expand the research on the formation of employee'unethical pro-organizational behavior.Study one investigaged the formation factor of unethical pro-organizational behavior from the perspectives of individual psychology factor.This study based on the theory of planned behavior,analyzed how three psychological antecedents(organizational identification,felt obligation and organization-based self-esteem)uniquely,differentially,and interactively predict unethical pro-organizational behavior.The questionnaires were collected from 6 enterprises in Guangzhou and 245 employees participated in the survey.The two-wave panel design study result showed that organizational identification,felt obligation and organization-based self-esteem can significantly and positively predict the employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior.Moreover,felt obligation reinforces the relationship between organizational identification and unethical pro-organizational behaviors.The findings will help scholars understand more about the psychological mechanism of unethical pro-organizational behaviors and also help managers take appropriate methods to reduce such behavior.According to social identity theory,study two examined the effect of supervisor bottom-line mentality on subordinates' unethical pro-organizational behavior,by focusing on the mediating role of subordinate moral disengagement and moderating role of subordinate power distance orientation,and constructing a moderated mediation model from the perspective of superviser mentality-subordinate behavior.The theoretical model was tested by using 231 two-wave data collected from employees in five firms in southern China.The findings showed that subordinate moral disengagement mediates the positive relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and subordinate unethical pro-organizational behavior.When employees demonstrate high levels of power distance orientation,the positive relationships between supervisor bottom-line mentality and subordinate moral disengagement and the indirect relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and subordinate unethical pro-organizational behavior were both strengthened.Drawing on social identity theory,study three considered why supervisors' unethical pro-organizational behavior brings about corresponding behavior in their employees from the perspective of behavioral contagion.Moreover,the study predicted that leader identification and moral identity will moderate this relationship.Using a time-lag study design,this study collected a sample of 227 multisource time-lagged data with which to test hypotheses.The results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between supervisors' and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior,and that this relationship is stronger when employees have higher leader identification,wheares this relationship is weaker when employees have higher moral identity.By exploring the causes of unethical pro-organizational behavior in both individual and situational factors,this study expanded relate literature in the following aspects:(1)Based on the theory of planned behavior,an integrated model of psychological factors affecting the unethical pro-organizational behavior is constructed,and it also provides a new theoretical perspective for the antecedent study of unethical pro-organizational behavior.(2)Different from the previous study of leadership style-ubordinate unethical pro-organization behavior.Based on the social cognitive theory,this paper explores the influence of the supervisors' bottom-line mentality on the subordinates' unethical pro-organization behavior,which enriches the antecedent research of unethical pro-organizational behavior.In addition,we explored the moderating role of the power distance orientation;(3)From the perspective of behavioral contagion,this paper explored the top-down contagion effect of unethical pro-organizational behavior in the organization,which explains why the unethical pro-organizational behavior is widespread in the organization.Therefore,this study not only deepens the antecedent research on unethical pro-organizational behavior,but also expands the contagion research of unethical pro-organizational behavior.