Impact of Peer Unethical Behaviors on Employee Silence: The Role of Organizational Identification and Emotions

Aneka Fahima Sufi (), Usman Raja () and Arif Nazir Butt ()
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Aneka Fahima Sufi: Lahore University of Management Sciences
Usman Raja: Brock University
Arif Nazir Butt: Lahore University of Management Sciences

Journal of Business Ethics, 2024, vol. 190, issue 4, No 5, 839 pages

Abstract: Abstract Although extant literature has covered the differences between unethical behaviors in relation to perpetrators and targets, most of this research has not considered the effects of observed unethical behaviors on employees. In this study, we focus on observed unethical behaviors of peers targeted at their organization and examine how witnessing a peer engage in an organizationally targeted unethical behavior would impact the observer. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we propose that organizational identification will inform emotions, which in turn will shape employee silence, depending on how employees appraise the observed unethical behavior. We theorize that peer unethical behaviors would induce anger, anxiety, and vicarious shame, which will guide employees’ quiescent and prosocial silence behaviors. In addition, we suggest that the proposed relationships would vary with the level of organizational identification. With a sample of 329, results from a between-subject scenario study generally supported our hypotheses. There was a combined effect of peer unethical behaviors and organizational identification on anger, anxiety, and shame, which in turn led to employee silence in the cases of anxiety and shame.

Keywords: Peer unethical behavior; Organizational identification; Anxiety; Vicarious shame; Prosocial silence; Quiescent silence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05397-x

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