The moral licensing effect between work effort and unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating influence of Co
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The moral licensing effect between work effort and unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating influence of Confucian value Ming Kong 1
& Jie
Xin 2 & Wenxiao Xu 2 & Haonan Li 2 & Dandan Xu 2
Accepted: 2 September 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract While a large body of literature has focused on the positive effect of work effort on improving individual performance and organizational effectiveness, little is known about how work effort produces the negative outcome, such as unethical pro-organizational behavior. Our study proposes that work effort will activate the moral licensing mechanism through moral credential to increase unethical pro-organizational behavior, and leader Confucian value negatively moderates this relationship. Through the single-factor twolevel experimental research (study 1) and the multi-time point investigation data analysis (study 2), the mediation model and the moderated mediation model proposed in both two studies have been supported by observation data. These findings are significant to further understanding of the psychological mechanism and boundary condition of unethical proorganizational behavior, and provide practical guidance for managers to effectively control employee’s unethical pro-organizational behavior. Keywords Moral licensing theory . Work effort . Unethical pro-organizational behavior .
Leader Confucian value
* Jie Xin [email protected] Ming Kong [email protected] Wenxiao Xu [email protected] Haonan Li [email protected] Dandan Xu [email protected]
1
Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Education, 201100 Shanghai, China
2
Shandong University School of Management, 250100 Jinan, China
M. Kong et al.
Even though people value their own moral image (Monin & Jordan, 2009), as moral practitioners (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008), they would take part in unethical behaviors. It shows the dynamic and compensatory feature of moral (Jordan, Mullen, & Murnighan, 2011), which is referred to as moral licensing. Moral licensing will provide a moral label for people’s unethical behavior in the future (Jordan et al., 2011), which would not only stop the individual from making moral efforts, such as willingness to volunteer and help (Conway & Peetz, 2012), charity donations (Conway & Peetz, 2012) and prosocial behavior (Jordan et al., 2011), but also encourage unethical behavior, such as deviance (Yam, Klotz, He, & Reynolds, 2017), cheating (Jordan et al., 2011), dishonest behavior (Urban, Bahnik, & Kohlova, 2019) and counterproductive work behavior (Klotz & Bolino, 2013). Based on it, as an effective mechanism to describe unethical behaviors done by “good person”, how can moral licensing explain the occurrence of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB)? UPB refers to the behaviors that the individual conducts to protect the interest of the organization or its members while violate the social and moral standards (Umphress & Bingham, 2011), such as concealing the defect of the product, deliberately reporting fake
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