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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

When Employees Do Bad Things for Good Reasons: Examining Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviors

TLDR
It is suggested that positive social exchange relationships and organizational identification may lead to unethical pro-organizational behavior indirectly via neutralization, the process by which the moral content of unethical actions is overlooked.
Abstract
We propose that employees sometimes engage in unethical acts with the intent to benefit their organization, its members, or both---a construct we term unethical pro-organizational behavior. We suggest that positive social exchange relationships and organizational identification may lead to unethical pro-organizational behavior indirectly via neutralization, the process by which the moral content of unethical actions is overlooked. We incorporate situational and individual-level constructs as moderators of these relationships and consider managerial implications and future research.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Examining the moral grey zone: The role of moral disengagement, authenticity, and situational strength in predicting unethical managerial behavior

TL;DR: In this article, the influence of individual and situational differences in predicting (un)ethical behavior in these moral gray zones using an in-basket exercise that included covert moral issues in which managers could give unethical instructions to their followers.
Journal ArticleDOI

Exploring the consequences of knowledge hiding: an agency theory perspective

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the consequences of knowledge hiding at the individual level and from the knowledge hiding committers' perspective, in line with agency theory and prior literature on knowledge hiding, and investigate the associations between different facets of knowledge sharing and individual-level job performance, as well as the mediating role of employee well-being in the associations.
Journal ArticleDOI

To Help My Supervisor: Identification, Moral Identity, and Unethical Pro-supervisor Behavior

TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that feeling a sense of oneness with one's organization or supervisor can result in employees engaging in unethical behavior to help their supervisor, and that this positive relationship is weakened if the employee possesses higher levels of moral identity.
Journal ArticleDOI

Lying for Who We Are: An Identity-Based Model of Workplace Dishonesty

TL;DR: The authors developed a theory of lying as a socially motivated behavioral response to identity threats at personal, relational, or collective levels of identity in organizational life, and proposed that perceived identity threats undermine the unique fundamental identity motives at each level of self, and that as threat sensitivity and threat intractability increase, individuals become more likely to use lying as threat management response in their interactions with other organizational members.
References
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Book

Exchange and Power in Social Life

Peter M. Blau
TL;DR: In a seminal work as discussed by the authors, Peter M. Blau used concepts of exchange, reciprocity, imbalance, and power to examine social life and to derive the more complex processes in social structure from the simpler ones.
Book ChapterDOI

The social identity theory of intergroup behavior

TL;DR: A theory of intergroup conflict and some preliminary data relating to the theory is presented in this article. But the analysis is limited to the case where the salient dimensions of the intergroup differentiation are those involving scarce resources.
Journal ArticleDOI

The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement *

TL;DR: The notion of complementarity and reciprocity in functional theory is explored in this article, enabling a reanalysis of the concepts of "survival" and "exploitation" and the need to distinguish between complementarity, reciprocity, and the generalized moral norm of reciprocity.
Book

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

TL;DR: The authors argued that rational decisions are not the product of logic alone - they require the support of emotion and feeling, drawing on his experience with neurological patients affected with brain damage, Dr Damasio showed how absence of emotions and feelings can break down rationality.
Journal ArticleDOI

Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory.

TL;DR: In this paper, a self-categorization theory is proposed to discover the social group and the importance of social categories in the analysis of social influence, and the Salience of social Categories is discussed.
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