 When loyalty binds: Examining the effectiveness of group versus personal loyalty calls on followers’ compliance with leaders’ unethical requestsJohn Angus D. Hildreth Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2024, vol. 181, issue C Abstract: When leaders call on their followers’ loyalty, is it an effective strategy, particularly when such loyalty calls conflict with other ethical duties? And, if calling on loyalty is an effective strategy, when and why are such appeals more effective? These questions were examined in six studies measuring the unethical compliance of workers interacting online, students working together in classroom and fraternity members collaborating in their houses. Findings revealed that the effectiveness of leaders’ loyalty calls depended critically on the target of loyalty: calling on group loyalty was generally more effective than calling on personal loyalty to the leader in eliciting followers’ compliance with leaders’ unethical requests and in helping followers feel better about their deceit because such calls helped followers to rationalize their unethical behavior more easily. Thus, calling on group loyalty not only increases followers’ unethical behavior but also helps them feel righteous about their deceit. Keywords: Loyalty; Morality; Unethical behavior; Well-being; Leadership; Groups (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:181:y:2024:i:c:s0749597824000025 DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2024.104310 Access Statistics for this article Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is currently edited by John M. Schaubroeck More articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from Elsevier |
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