The moral licensing effect between work effort and unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating influence of Confucian value

How and when voluntary citizenship behaviour towards individuals triggers vicious knowledge hiding: the roles of moral licensing and the mastery climate

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how voluntary citizenship behaviour towards an individual (VCB-I) is linked with vicious knowledge hiding (VKH), and why members, within a mastery climate, tend to participate in less VKH after their engaging in VCB-I. The authors, according to the moral licensing theory, propose that moral licensing mediates the relationship between VCB-I and VKH, and that a mastery climate weakens the hypothesised link via moral licensing.

Design/methodology/approach

This study surveys 455 valid matching samples of subordinates and supervisors from 77 working teams in China at two time points and explores the relationship between VCB and VKH, as well as the underlying mechanism. A confirmatory factor analysis, bootstrapping method and hierarchical linear model were used to validate the research hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that VCB-I has a significant positive effect on VKH; moral credentials play a mediating role in the relationship between VCB-I and VKH; and the mastery climate moderates the positive effect of moral credentials on VKH and the mediating effect of moral credentials. In a high-mastery climate, the direct effect of moral credentials on VKH and the indirect influence of VCB-I on VKH through moral credentials are both weakened, and conversely, both effects are enhanced in a low-mastery climate. However, contrary to the expected hypothesis, moral credits do not mediate the relationship between VCB-I and VKH, which may be due to the differences in the mechanisms between the two moral licensing models.

Originality/value

Prior research has mainly focused on the “victim-centric” perspective to examine the impacts of others’ behaviour on employees’ knowledge hiding. Few works have used the “actor-centric” perspective to analyse the relationship between employees’ prior workplace behaviour and their subsequent knowledge hiding intention. In addition, this study enriches the field research on the voluntary aspects of organisational citizenship behaviour, which differs from its involuntary ones.

CSR, moral licensing and organizational misconduct: a conceptual review

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize how past corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the occurrence of organizational misconduct by the means of moral licensing.

Design/methodology/approach

To this end, the authors conduct a conceptual review and develop a framework illustrating how moral credits and moral credentials (moral licensing) may institutionalize irresponsibility and lead to subsequent misconduct.

Findings

The authors propose a conceptual framework that describes the relationship between past CSR and organizational misconduct by the means of moral licensing. Based on initial literature-based findings, this paper provides confirmatory evidence for the authors’ framework and illustrates that past CSR might be used as a moral licensing tool that eventually fosters the occurrence of organizational misconduct.

Research limitations/implications

The authors propose future researchers account for the moral licensing effect when examining the antecedents of misconduct and explore the potential moderators of this effect.

Practical implications

The authors recommend that organizations establish management control systems that specifically address the issue of moral licensing when evaluating CSR initiatives. The authors also propose that organizations should adhere to a consistent CSR strategy that potentially fosters the selection of moral leaders who are not prone to moral licensing.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to connect corporate social responsibility, moral licensing and organizational misconduct from a conceptual perspective.