Implicit Morality Theories: Employees’ Beliefs About the Malleability of Moral Character Shape Their Workplace Behaviors

Zhiyu Feng (), Fong Keng-Highberger (), Hu Li () and Krishna Savani ()
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Zhiyu Feng: Renmin University of China
Fong Keng-Highberger: Nanyang Technological University
Hu Li: Nanjing University
Krishna Savani: Nanyang Technological University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2023, vol. 184, issue 1, No 12, 193-216

Abstract: Abstract Implicit morality theories refer to people’s beliefs about whether individuals’ moral character is fixed or malleable. Drawing on the social cognitive theory of morality, we examine the relationship between employees’ implicit morality theories and their organizational citizenship behaviors toward coworkers (OCBC) and coworker-directed deviance (CDD) through a moral self-regulatory mechanism. A laboratory experiment (Study 1), an online experiment (Study 2), and a multi-wave, multi-source field survey (Study 3) found that the more employees held a fixed belief about morality, the lower their sense of moral control, especially when their moral identity was lower. This perceived lack of moral control, in turn, predicted decreased OCBC, particularly when the workgroup ethical climate was weak. However, this relationship did not hold for CDD. Overall, our research highlights implicit morality theories as a novel antecedent of employees’ workplace behaviors, and identifies the underlying moral self-regulatory process, along with individual and situational boundary conditions.

Keywords: Implicit morality theories; Moral control; Moral identity; Ethical climate; Organizational citizenship behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05113-1

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