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Some of the best information for preventing accounting violations is received from employees who have observed the unethical behavior (Henning, 2016). However, receiving information about accounting violations or other unethical behavior in organizations requires employees to voluntarily report the behavior. Employees may be particularly hesitant to report unethical behavior when the behavior benefits them. Employees may also justify their own unethical behavior as morally appropriate when their moral identity allows the behavior. The authors draw on psychology and ethics literature to examine the relationships among moral identity, moral disengagement, and unethical behavior. In the exploration of behavior, the authors examine both commissions and omissions. While unethical commissions are violations directly committed by an individual without cooperation from others, unethical omissions are violations resulting from an individual failing to take steps necessary to correct another's unethical behavior.

The authors conduct a survey about cheating with a sample of college students. Using structural equation modeling, the authors find that intentions to engage in unethical commissions are positively associated with moral disengagement, while unethical omissions do not appear to create the moral disengagement that can arise from cognitive dissonance. The authors also find a feedback loop from moral disengagement to future intentions, which suggests moral disengagement created from one unethical act increases intentions for future unethical behavior. Finally, the authors find a simple intervention that can help to increase the moral intensity of observed unethical behavior.

The purpose of this study was to explicate how leaders’ knowledge hiding results in employees’ knowledge hiding. In addition, the study was intended to explore under what conditions leaders’ knowledge hiding affects employees’ moral disengagement more deleteriously.

Data were collected from 321 employees at three different times which were two months apart from each other. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The study found leaders’ knowledge hiding to be related to employee moral disengagement. In addition, the study found moral disengagement to affect employees’ knowledge-hiding behavior. Moral disengagement was found to mediate the relationship between leaders’ knowledge hiding and employees’ knowledge hiding. Finally, the study found that employees with high moral identity show more perseverance to preserve their moral engagement when led by knowledge-hiding leaders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study was first to establish a relationship between a leader’s knowledge hiding and employees’ moral disengagement. The study also established the mediating role of moral disengagement to work as a mediating mechanism linking leaders’ knowledge hiding to employees’ knowledge hiding. Finally, the study found that moral identity moderates the relationship between leaders’ knowledge hiding and employees’ moral disengagement.

The purpose of this study is to understand how ethical leadership and coworker ethical behavior will influence employee unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). In particular, the authors examine the mediating effect of moral disengagement on the relationship between ethical leadership and UPB and also investigate the moderating effect of coworker ethical behavior on the aforementioned effect.

Data were collected from 251 employee–coworker dyads from five organizations in Taiwan at two time points. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses.

The results show that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee UPB. Moreover, the results show that coworker ethical behavior moderates the relationship between moral disengagement and employee UPB, as well as the mediated relationship between ethical leadership and employee UPB via moral disengagement. Specifically, both the moral disengagement–UPB relationship and the ethical leadership–moral disengagement–UPB relationship become weaker when coworker ethical behavior is high.

The results highlight the importance of creating an ethical work environment to get everyone behaving ethically in the workplace, because nurturing an ethical atmosphere in organizations will be useful in reducing the occurrence of UPB even for those who have high levels of moral disengagement.

This study shows that coworkers matter morally as much as leaders, demonstrating the importance of social influence from coworkers in organizations.

Despite the recent extending research on knowledge hiding, there is still scant research on social stressor phenomena-related contextual antecedent factors and new cognitive mechanisms of knowledge hiding behaviors. To shed new light on this unexplored gap, this research explores the multi-level moderated mediation model that examines how and when negative gossip experienced by targets in the workplace induces their knowledge hiding from coworkers drawing from the lens of social learning and cognitive theories. More specifically, this study aims to evaluate the relationship between negative workplace gossip and knowledge hiding via moral disengagement, and this mediation effect is also moderated by team relational conflict as a novel boundary condition.

This study collected multi-wave 338 employees’ data from 68 teams of cross-sectional industries in China, which were nested within teams. The collected nested nature data were analyzed by employing multi-level analysis based on hierarchical linear modeling.

The results suggested that negative workplace gossip first triggers moral disengagement and thereby, leads to knowledge hiding. Furthermore, the direct positive association between negative workplace gossip and moral disengagement was strengthened by increasing intra-team relational conflict. In addition, the mediation effect of moral disengagement between negative workplace gossip and knowledge hiding was also strengthened through increasing intra-team relational conflict.

This study first empirically examines the multi-level model using a new underlying mechanism (moral disengagement) and team-level boundary condition (relational conflict) and enriches the current literature on knowledge management and workplace gossip. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings and future research lines are also discussed, which will facilitate practitioners and academicians to curb counterproductive knowledge behavior.

Employees may see technostress, that is, the stress experienced by individuals as a result of the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as a threat to their jobs. In other words, employees may have a strong sense of job insecurity because of the ICT. This study aims to examine why and when employees might respond to technology-induced job insecurity (techno-insecurity) by engaging in workplace deviance – an activity that is costly for organizations.

The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, using a sample of 354 valid responses.

The authors found that job-related technostress creators and technology-related technostress creators are positively associated with techno-insecurity. Techno-insecurity affects deviant behavior by increasing employees' moral disengagement. The authors also found that informal sanctions moderated the relationship between techno-insecurity and moral disengagement, while formal sanctions moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and deviance.

This study contributes to a better understanding of employee techno-insecurity and deviance by expanding the technostress literature and applying moral disengagement theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between permeability, work-family conflict, moral disengagement, behavioral disengagement, job strain and job engagement. In addition, this study aims to determine whether moral disengagement acts as a moderator and mediator in the relationship between work-family conflict and behavioral disengagement.

The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, using a sample of 176 valid responses.

The results indicate that permeability is likely to promote work-family conflict, which in turn may trigger moral disengagement. Moral disengagement may lead to behavioral disengagement, which in turn may increase job strain and decrease job engagement. The findings also show that work-family conflict does not have a significant effect on behavioral disengagement, suggesting that moral disengagement fully mediates the influence of work-family conflict on behavioral disengagement. In addition, the moderating effect of moral disengagement is not significant.

Applying the transactional model of stress and coping theory and the moral disengagement theory, this study contributes to a better understanding of employees' experience of job strain caused by work-family conflict (induced by permeability of IM usage), as well as the employee's coping response.

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between fear of terrorism and several predictors (gender and nationality) and outcomes (moral disengagement, authoritarianism, aggression and social anxiety) in the USA and South Korean young adults. Of particular interest were the potential moderating and mediating roles of moral disengagement between fear of terrorism and the other outcomes.

Samples of 251 college students from the USA and 211 college students from South Korea completed survey packets including measures of fear of terrorism, moral disengagement, authoritarianism, aggression and social anxiety.

US participants expressed greater concern about a terrorist threat to their country, while South Koreans worried more about terrorist threats to their family or themselves. Females in both countries reported greater fear of terrorism and social anxiety. In both countries, fear of terrorism was associated with aggression, social anxiety and moral disengagement. Mediation analyses showed that fear of terrorism exerted a significant direct effect and an indirect effect via moral disengagement on aggression and authoritarianism in the US sample. Moderation analyses revealed that moral disengagement moderated the relationship between fear of terrorism and social anxiety in the Korean sample.

This study has the common limitations of cross-sectional studies; i.e. it cannot prove causal relationships.

The findings support Albert Bandura’s view that efforts to address the excesses of counterterrorism and other negative outcomes of fear of terrorism, attending to issues of moral disengagement may be helpful.

The authors findings provide support for the view that fear of terrorism is associated with negative psychological and social outcomes and that moral disengagement can play an important role in those negative outcomes. Moreover, it adds to evidence that the negative role of moral disengagement shows considerable generalizability across gender and two very different cultures.

Research has demonstrated that ethical leadership helps to limit subordinates' workplace deviance. In this chapter, we draw on social cognitive theory of moral thought and action to further understand why ethical leadership has a preventing impact on workplace deviance. We propose that the key mechanism between ethical leadership and deviance is moral disengagement, which refers to the process of making unethical behavior morally or socially acceptable. Specifically, subordinates learn cognitively and emotionally from ethical leaders to minimize the adoption of moral disengagement. When they decrease the use of moral disengagement, subordinates are less likely to display deviant behavior.

This study aims to assess the direct impact of workplace hazing and the indirect impact via moral disengagement on organizational deviance behavior and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) communication in the hospitality industry of Pakistan. This research also addresses the significance of psychological (resilience) and social factors (friendship prevalence) as moderators of the relationship between workplace hazing and moral disengagement.

Using a multirespondent strategy, the data was collected from 319 newcomers employed in the Pakistani hospitality industry and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that workplace hazing increases moral disengagement, organizational deviance and negative WOM communication. Moreover, various psychological factors can significantly decrease and mediate the negative influence of workplace hazing on moral disengagement.

The managers should explicitly and formally handle the workplace hazing issues like harassment and bullying to build a positive working environment for newcomers.

This study addresses a gap in determining the significance of workplace hazing and its impact on moral disengagement, organizational deviance and negative WOM communication. Also, this study contributes to the literature by examining either social or psychological factors that play an important role in dampening the negative impact of workplace hazing.

The study aims to explain the role of moral disengagement in supply chain management (SCM) research and the challenges that arise if the theory is used beyond its inherent limitations.

Conceptual paper based on how Bandura developed and used moral disengagement.

Moral disengagement can be used validly in SCM research. The theory should not to be applied to the supply chain itself, but SCM can be seen as an environment that is part of a reciprocal exchange, which shapes human behavior.

The paper suggests a new theory for a better understanding of business ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainability in SCM. Furthermore, the paper outlines how the theory should be used and some challenges that remain.

SCM researchers have shown how to apply a theory from psychology to SCM, which could progress to several areas of the research field. The paper also highlights an inconsistency in the use of the theory and explains how it should be used in SCM research.