Toward Understanding Employees 'Responses to Leaders' Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior: An Outcome Favorability Perspective

Yahua Cai (cai.yahua@shufe.edu.cn), Haoding Wang (wanghaodingsufe@163.sufe.edu.cn), Sebastian C. Schuh (sschuh@ceibs.edu), Jinsong Li (jsongli@mail.shufe.edu.cn) and Weili Zheng (weilizheng@163.sufe.edu.cn)
Additional contact information
Yahua Cai: Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
Haoding Wang: Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics
Sebastian C. Schuh: Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Jinsong Li: Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
Weili Zheng: Shanghai University of Finance & Economics

Journal of Business Ethics, 2024, vol. 192, issue 1, No 6, 79-95

Abstract: Abstract The uncovering of several recent corporate scandals has brought to light unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) in organizations. A growing body of research has provided insights into employees’ UPB and its antecedents. However, our understanding of leader UPB and its effects remains limited. In this study, we develop and test a theoretical model that explains employees’ responses to their leader UPB. By drawing on the theory of motivated reasoning and the trust literature, we posit that, in general, leader UPB is linked to unfavorable responses from employees such as a lower perception of leaders’ trustworthiness, which, in turn, reduces the citizenship behaviors of employees. However, our model also shows that these effects do not emerge automatically but depend on a crucial boundary condition—followers’ outcome favorability, or the extent to which followers personally benefit from leader UPB. Specifically, we contend that negative responses to leader UPB arise mainly when followers’ outcome favorability is low but decrease significantly when followers’ outcome favorability is high. The results of two multi-wave, multi-source field studies support our hypothesized model. These findings offer a new, instrumental perspective on followers’ responses to unethical leader behaviors, with valuable theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Leader unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB); Motivated reasoning theory; Outcome favorability; Organizational citizenship behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-023-05535-5 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:192:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-023-05535-5

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

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05535-5

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 (sonal.shukla@springer.com) and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (indexing@springernature.com).