An Experimental Study On The Effects Of Competition Outcomes On Individuals' Unethical Behaviors

Competitions are prevalent in the business practices of the organization, such as horizontal competition between similar types of actors, competition between different types and vertical competition between customers and suppliers. Most of those who write about marketing or strategy appear to view competition as the overarching logic of business. Commentators usually associate competition with improved economic efficiency and customer well-being and regard it as a good thing. However, researchers also find that individuals are more prone to behave unethically under competition conditions, such as cheating, sabotage, and fabrication. Unethical behaviors in the organization will not only influence relationships among employees but also decrease operating efficiency. Studying how outcomes of the competition influence individuals'unethical behaviors, therefore, can make a contribution theoretically as well as bring some new meanings to both organizations and individuals in the practice.This study examines three hypotheses:(1) The influence of competition outcomes (i.e., win, loss) on individuals'unethical behaviors. (2) The relationship between risk attitude and unethical behaviors. (3) Testing gender differences in terms of unethical behaviors. We designed an experiment, which included a Cognitive Task, a set of questionnaires, and a Problem Solving Task. Specifically, the Cognitive Task is used to induce participants'mental state about winning or losing and the Problem Solving Task to track subjects'unethical behavior. After analyzing date collecting from the experiment, we concluded that (1) people who lost in the prior task were more likely to behave unethically than those who win the game; (2) there is a significant interaction effect between risk attitude and task difficulty on unethical behaviors; (3) gender difference in terms of unethical behaviors under competitive situations is not significant.The paper has several theoretical contributions. First of all, outcomes of the competition (i.e., win and loss) have differential impact on people's behaviors, contributing to the literature on how competitive contexts influence unethical behaviors. This study suggests that those who experienced the loss were more prepared to have unethical behaviors than those who experienced the win. This study further suggests that people'risk attitude can predict unethical behavior, particularly when perceived task difficulty is high, therefore contributing to our understanding of how competitive situation influence individuals'unethical behaviors. Existing literature on gender difference in terms of unethical behavior is mixed; this study also contributes to our understanding of the gender difference of unethical behaviors in competitive contexts by indicating that under competitive situations, gender difference of unethical behaviors is not significant.