EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Doing Good by Doing Bad: How Tone at the Top and Tone at the Bottom Impact Performance-Improving Noncompliant Behavior

Corinna Ewelt-Knauer (), Anja Schwering () and Sandra Winkelmann ()
Additional contact information
Corinna Ewelt-Knauer: Justus-Liebig-University Gießen (Germany)
Anja Schwering: University of Potsdam (Germany)
Sandra Winkelmann: Justus-Liebig-University Gießen (Germany)

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 175, issue 3, No 9, 609-624

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates how tone at the top, implemented by top management, and tone at the bottom, in an employee’s immediate work environment, determine noncompliance. We focus on the disallowed actions of employees that improve their own and, in turn, the company’s performance, referred to as performance-improving noncompliant behavior (PINC behavior). We conduct a survey of German sales employees to investigate specifically how, on the one hand, (1) corporate rules and (2) performance pressure, both implemented by top management, and, on the other hand, (3) others’ PINC expectations and (4) others’ PINC behavior, both arising from the employee’s immediate work environment, influence PINC behavior. When considered in isolation, we find that corporate rules, as top management’s main instrument to guide employee behavior, decrease employee PINC behavior. However, this effect is negatively influenced by the employees’ immediate work environment when employees are expected to engage in PINC or when others engage in PINC. In contrast, even though top management places great performance pressure on employees, that by itself does not increase PINC behavior. Overall, our study informs practitioners and researchers about whether and how the four determinants increase or decrease employees’ PINC behavior, which is important to comprehend triggers and to counteract such misconduct.

Keywords: Noncompliance; Tone at the top; Tone at the bottom; Corporate rules; Performance pressure; Others’ expectations; Others’ behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-020-04647-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:175:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04647-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04647-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:175:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04647-6