Research On The Effects Of Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior On Organizational Members

Unethical behavior is a severe issue for organizations and society costing billions of dollars in damages each year.Most unethical activities in organizations tend to be self-beneficial or harm coworkers or the organization.However,recent studies found that many unethical activities were performed by employees to benefit their companies and leaders(such as destroying incriminating files to protect an organization’s reputation or disclosing exaggerated information to the public).Consequently,scholars have investigated unethical pro-organizational behavior(UPB),which is defined as “unethical behaviors which seek to benefit the organization or its leaders”.This definition presupposes that UPB is unethical behavior that is unacceptable to the community or society,yet is also proorganizational behavior,which refers to the motivation behind this unethical action.Although employees try to benefit their organizations by engaging in UPB,the consequences of UPB may deviate from their intention and cause harm to the company.However,UPB may also bring potential gains to organizations,such as boosting the organization’s sales.Hence,UPB creates a dilemma in which the interests of external stakeholders are harmed,while the interests of the organization may benefit in the short run.It is necessary and important to understand such acts and heighten awareness of ways to diminish them.Researchers have paid attention to the ambivalence of UPB.Although the mainstream of UPB literature assumes that employees engaging in UPB are unethical and dishonest,they are not always recognized as purely unethical by organizations.This is because,by its very nature,UPB may be perceived as occurring for pro-social(altruistic)reasons leading to a positive ethical judgment by managers.Such paradoxical feature of UPB raises advocate of studying the inherent complexities of UPB.However,the notion of how organizations attribute and discipline employees’ UPBs remains unstudied.Clarifying this issue will be particularly helpful to efficient and effective organizational management.Thus,in present study,drawing on affective events theory,attribution theory and personorganization fit theory,this thesis seeks to explore whether,when,and why actors and observers(leaders and peers)response to UPB.By using scenario experiment,survey,experience sampling method and response surface analysis,this thesis explore observers and actors’ ambivalence cognitional,emotional and response to UPB.This study was carried out from three perspectives of actors,leaders and colleagues,and explored the mechanism of UPB from three levels of cognition,emotion and attitude/behavior,so as to construct the influence chain of UPB.This study also used a variety of empirical research methods,such as experiential sampling method,situational experiment and survey,and used statistical methods such as structural equation model,regression analysis and response surface analysis to reveal the hypotheses.Four studies were conducted to verify the results respectively.In support of hypotheses,this research found that(1)employees’ UPB exerted a positive effect on job well-being via rumination and mixed emotion,this effect was moderated by integrational complexity.(2)actors’ UPB exerted an effect on peer ostracism via judgment of ethicality,perceived competence and mixed emotion,and that this effect was moderated by attributions(altruistic and egoistic motives).Peers judged UPB more leniently when they had altruistic attributions and instigated less severe punishment as a result.Specifically,Peers judged UPB more leniently,competence and mixed emotion when they had altruistic attributions and instigated less ostracism as a result.However,while this research hypothesized that egoistic motive attributions would also moderate these effects of UPB on ethical judgments,perceived competence,mixed emotion and ostracism,this thesis did not find evidence to support the Hypotheses.(3)actors’ UPB exerted an effect on leaders’ disciplinary actions via judgment of ethicality,perceived competence and mixed emotion,and that this effect was moderated by attributions(altruistic and egoistic motives).Leaders judged UPB more leniently when they had altruistic attributions and instigated less severe punishment as a result.Specifically,Leaders judged UPB more leniently,competence and mixed emotion when they had altruistic attributions and instigated less severe punishment as a result.However,while this research hypothesized that egoistic motive attributions would also moderate these effects of UPB on ethical judgments,perceived competence,mixed emotion and disciplinary,this thesis did not find evidence to support the Hypotheses.This may be because the warmth information in UPB attenuated moral censure.Indeed,there is reason to believe that the warmth information of behavior carries over to influence judgments of ethicality because this positive information may attract and reduce how much attention people pay to the unethical nature of UPB.Besides,although peers and leaders perceived the employees’ UPB as egoistic and unethical,they may not enforce hardline ostracism and disciplinary responses to UPB because the potential benefits of UPB likely far outweigh potential harmful consequences for them and the organization in the short run.Taken together,the results of these studies provide evidence that the predictions hold across different attributions.(4)the fit of leaders’ disciplinary actions and leader-employees moral foundation congruence influences actors’ job well-being and peer ostracism.Specifically,as the congruence between leaders’ disciplinary actions and leader-follower moral foundations fit increase,the follower perceptions of well-being will decrease and peer ostracism will increase.In addition,the fit of leaders’ disciplinary actions and leader-employees moral foundation congruence influences actors’ job wellbeing through peer ostracism.This thesis makes important contributes in several ways.First,this study offers a new theoretical understanding and present an empirical test for how UPB influences observers and actors’ cognition and emotion,and the resulting actions are taken.An examination of this effect is likely to advance the current understanding of the consequences of UPB in the organizational context.Second,the findings contribute to the literature on affective event theory by integrating cognition to reveal the roles of attributions in stimulating or preventing the spread of employee UPB.Although studies have suggested that the intentions and consequences of unethical behavior affect moral judgment,scant research has explored how observers(e.g.,leaders)interpret UPB,and whether such behavior is conducted with good intentions.This research indicates that observers’ attributions of unethical behavior can affect how unethical the actions are perceived to be.This research offers significant implications for practice.The results have shown that employee UPB is likely to be judged as less unethical by observers,leading to lenient responses.Managers may not always be aware of this tendency.Thus,the findings should serve as a warning to organizations that organizations’ discipline should be emphasized.For example,organizations should implement appropriate training programs to teach managers how to discipline employees for undertaking UPB.Organizations and politicians often publicly and emphatically tolerate UPB,which is an unethical activity in nature.Mangers should be made aware that although condoning UPB might be beneficial to the leaders or the firm in the short period,it may be harmful in the long term.Moreover,it is critical to educate managers on the importance of taking disciplinary action in response to UPB,and the psychological processes that come into play when altruistic attribution is involved.Although some of these psychological processes work automatically and unconsciously,an essential factor is ensuring that managers recognize psychological effects.Thus,organizations should invest more in training programs geared toward evaluating moral dilemmas,such as UPB.Further,amoral culture,combined with leaders’ enhanced management skills,may help cultivate a work environment that discourages employee UPB.