Paved with good intentions: role of situational and dispositional influences on employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior

Abstract

Purpose

The rise in the instances of ethical scandals in recent times has brought to light the hitherto ignored phenomenon of unethical proorganizational behavior (UPB) by employees. Drawing upon the social exchange theory, this study aims to examine the role of perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational identification on UPB. The research also investigated the moderating role of core self-evaluation (CSE) and positive reciprocity beliefs.

Design/methodology/approach

The hypotheses were tested with three-wave survey data collected from 306 executives from India. Data was analyzed using mediation and moderated mediation analyses on PROCESS v 3.0 macro.

Findings

Results showed that organizational identification mediated the relationship between POS and UPB. Further, CSE and positive reciprocity beliefs were seen to moderate the mediated relationship providing support for the moderated mediation framework.

Practical implications

The study highlights the importance of clear code of ethics, communication of ethical guidelines and ethical behavior of the managers as some of the ways to reduce the menace of UPB. Further, managers should be more vigilant toward the employees low on CSE and high on positive reciprocity beliefs as they are more prone to engage in UPB given their identification with the organization.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the mediating role of organizational identification in the relationship between POS and UPB. Further, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has explored the moderating role of CSE and positive reciprocity beliefs in the aforesaid mediation.

Citation

Chhabra, B. and Srivastava, S. (2023), "Paved with good intentions: role of situational and dispositional influences on employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 31 No. 7, pp. 2845-2865. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2022-3191