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Masks as a moral symbol: Masks reduce wearers' deviant behavior in China during COVID-19. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2211144119. [PMID: 36194635 PMCID: PMC9564937 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2211144119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, mask wearing has become a global phenomenon. How do masks influence wearers' behavior in everyday life? We examine the effect of masks on wearers' deviant behavior in China, where mask wearing is mostly a public-health issue rather than a political issue. Drawing on behavioral ethics research, we test two competing hypotheses: (a) masks disinhibit wearers' deviant behavior by increasing their sense of anonymity and (b) masks are a moral symbol that reduces wearers' deviant behavior by heightening their moral awareness. The latter hypothesis was consistently supported by 10 studies (including direct replications) using mixed methods (e.g., traffic camera recording analysis, observational field studies, experiments, and natural field experiment) and different measures of deviant behavior (e.g., running a red light, bike parking in no-parking zones, cheating for money, and deviant behavior in the library). Our research (n = 68,243) is among the first to uncover the psychological and behavioral consequences of mask wearing beyond its health benefits.
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Li J, Wang H, Cai Y, Chen Z. How leaders restrict employees’ deviance: An integrative framework of interactional justice and ethical leadership. Front Psychol 2022; 13:942472. [PMID: 36017434 PMCID: PMC9396134 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.942472] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2022] [Accepted: 07/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Past research illustrated that leaders could restrict followers’ deviance by reinforcing social norms of appropriate behaviors. Nevertheless, we submit that this understanding is incomplete without considering the effects of leaders on followers’ self-sanctions given that most undesirable behaviors are controlled internally. This research argues that interactional justice is an effective strategy for leaders to enhance followers’ self-sanctions. Leaders’ interactional justice provides personalized information and dyadic treatment that indirectly reduce employees’ deviance by restraining followers’ moral disengagement. Besides, this study examines the social sanction role of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders highlight the importance of adherence to collective norms, which influence the relationship between followers’ moral disengagement and deviance. By identifying the different pathways via which they influence followers’ moral disengagement, we integrate interactional justice and ethical leadership into one theoretical framework. Our predictions are supported by data analyses of 220 samples from a multi-wave and -source field study. This integrative framework contributes to a comprehensive understanding of how leaders restrict employees’ deviance.
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Veetikazhi R, Kamalanabhan TJ, Noval LJ, Jaiswal A, Mueller A. Business Goal Difficulty and Socially Irresponsible Executive Behavior: The Mediating Role of Focalism. GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1177/10596011221105720] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Executive social irresponsibility has received increasing research attention in recent years, following the consensus for a broader stakeholder approach to managerial decision making. Despite the importance of the subject, there remains insufficient research on contextual factors that mold executives’ orientation toward social responsibility. Through three studies, we demonstrate that difficult business goals can reduce executives’ tendency to consider social responsibility in their decision making. Further, we find that focalism—a cognitive bias based on affective forecasting theory—can mediate positive relationships between business goal difficulty and socially irresponsible executive behavior. Our findings also suggest that, expanding executives’ thought processes beyond the narrow focus of a business goal achievement can be a good strategy in reducing socially irresponsible executive behavior, even in the presence of difficult goals.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - T. J. Kamalanabhan
- Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
| | - Laura J. Noval
- Department of Management and Organization, Rennes School of Business, Rennes, France
| | - Akanksha Jaiswal
- Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai, India
| | - Andreas Mueller
- Institute of Psychology, Work and Organisational Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
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Gonsalves L. When Do Firms Crack Under Pressure? Legal Professionals, Negative Role Models, and Organizational Misconduct. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2022.1597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Strain theory has long been invoked to explain organizational misconduct, with underperformance creating pressure for firms to engage in morally objectionable activities. In this paper, I examine whether underperformance increases the risk of organizational misconduct. Drawing on institutional arguments about professions and social learning, I further predict that when experiencing performance strain, legal professionals will push the boundaries of the law, increasing the risk of misconduct if they have influence over decision making. However, industry peers caught engaging in misconduct should serve as negative role models, reducing the risk of the firm resorting to misconduct to overcome performance shortfalls. I test and find support for these predictions using longitudinal data on material legal claims filed against S&P 1500 firms between 2000 and 2017. The study extends the strain theory of organizational misconduct, identifying how legal professionals and negative role models shape firms’ strategic responses to performance pressure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leroy Gonsalves
- Management and Organizations, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
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Fox S. Behavioral Ethics Ecologies of Human-Artificial Intelligence Systems. Behav Sci (Basel) 2022; 12:bs12040103. [PMID: 35447675 PMCID: PMC9029794 DOI: 10.3390/bs12040103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2022] [Revised: 04/08/2022] [Accepted: 04/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Historically, evolution of behaviors often took place in environments that changed little over millennia. By contrast, today, rapid changes to behaviors and environments come from the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and the infrastructures that facilitate its application. Behavioral ethics is concerned with how interactions between individuals and their environments can lead people to questionable decisions and dubious actions. For example, interactions between an individual’s self-regulatory resource depletion and organizational pressure to take non-ethical actions. In this paper, four fundamental questions of behavioral ecology are applied to analyze human behavioral ethics in human–AI systems. These four questions are concerned with assessing the function of behavioral traits, how behavioral traits evolve in populations, what are the mechanisms of behavioral traits, and how they can differ among different individuals. These four fundamental behavioral ecology questions are applied in analysis of human behavioral ethics in human–AI systems. This is achieved through reference to vehicle navigation systems and healthcare diagnostic systems, which are enabled by AI. Overall, the paper provides two main contributions. First, behavioral ecology analysis of behavioral ethics. Second, application of behavioral ecology questions to identify opportunities and challenges for ethical human–AI systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephen Fox
- VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, FI-02150 Espoo, Finland
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Burbano VC, Chiles B. Mitigating Gig and Remote Worker Misconduct: Evidence from a Real Effort Experiment. ORGANIZATION SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Employee misconduct is costly to organizations and has the potential to be even more common in gig and remote work contexts, in which workers are physically distant from their employers. There is, thus, a need for scholars to better understand what employers can do to mitigate misconduct in these nontraditional work environments, particularly as the prevalence of such work environments is increasing. We combine an agency perspective with a behavioral relationship-based perspective to consider two avenues through which gig employers can potentially mitigate misconduct: (1) through the communication of organizational values and (2) through the credible threat of monitoring. We implement a real effort experiment in a gig work context that enables us to cleanly observe misconduct. Consistent with our theory, we present causal evidence that communication of organizational values, both externally facing in the form of social/environmental responsibility and internally facing in the form of an employee ethics code, decreases misconduct. This effect, however, is largely negated when workers are informed that they are being monitored. We provide suggestive evidence that this crowding out is due to a decrease in perceived trust that results from the threat of monitoring. Our results have important theoretical implications for research on employee misconduct and shed light on the trade-offs associated with various potential policy solutions.
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Liu XL, Lu JG, Zhang H, Cai Y. Helping the organization but hurting yourself: How employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior predicts work-to-life conflict. ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND HUMAN DECISION PROCESSES 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2021.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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Jha JK, Singh M. Who cares about ethical practices at workplace? A taxonomy of employees’ unethical conduct from top management perspective. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS 2021. [DOI: 10.1108/ijoa-07-2020-2321] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to explore the various kind of prevailing unethical practices at workplace along with identification of factors triggering such unethical practices. Growing incidences of indulgence of employees in unethical acts in various organisation and negative consequences associated with it for the organisation such as erosion of reputation because of advance digital media coverage, shareholder value and others made compulsive to study the root cause of unethical behaviour at the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
This study extracts meaning from the experiences of top managers working in nine Indian organisations to understand the challenges faced by individuals at the workplace using the Gioia methodology. A total of 33 top management team (TMT) members were interviewed in detail to capture their experience in regard to various challenges that impose a threat to ethical conduct in the organisation.
Findings
The authors identified four categories of unethical behaviour, namely, pro-self, lack of autonomy, pro-organisation, systemic and negligence. Further, the authors have developed a taxonomy suggesting strategies to control unethical conduct at the workplace. Besides, the current study unravels the triggers behind different categories of unethical conduct, such as bottom-line mentality, rent-seeking behaviour of government officials, fluid ethical study culture and others.
Originality/value
Various types of unethical behaviour have been identified and frameworks to address such unethical practices are suggested in the paper. TMTs views have been captured to understand the root cause of unethical practices and strategies for addressing them have been discussed in the paper.
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Wei L, Zhang H, Liu Z, Ge X. Goal completion moderates the association between immoral behavior and self-perceived authenticity. SELF AND IDENTITY 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2021.1942973] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Li Wei
- Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Hong Zhang
- Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Ziqiang Liu
- Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Xinxin Ge
- Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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Veetikazhi R, Kamalanabhan TJ, Malhotra P, Arora R, Mueller A. Unethical employee behaviour: a review and typology. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2020.1810738] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - T. J. Kamalanabhan
- Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
| | - Pearl Malhotra
- Visiting Faculty, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
| | - Ridhi Arora
- Indian Institute of Management Shillong, Nongthymmai, Shillong, India
| | - Andreas Mueller
- Department of Work and Organisational Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
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Zhang H, Ge X, Liu Z, Wei L. Goal-related unethical behaviors and meaning in life: The moderating role of goal state. JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2020.103970] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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Harbingers of foul play: A field study of gain/loss frames and regulatory fit in the NFL. JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING 2020. [DOI: 10.1017/s1930297500007166] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
AbstractDo people cheat more when they have something to gain, or when they have something to lose? The answer to this question isn’t straightforward, as research is mixed when it comes to understanding how unethical people will be when they might acquire something good versus avoid something bad. To wit, research has found that people cheat more in a loss (vs. gain) frame, yet research on regulatory focus has found that people cheat more in a promotion focus (where the focus is on acquiring gains) than in a prevention focus (where the focus is on avoiding losses). Through a large-scale field study containing 332,239 observations including 27,350 transgressions, we address the contradictory results of gain/loss frames and regulatory focus on committing unethical behavior in a context that contains a high risk of detecting unethical behavior (NFL football games). Our results replicated the separate effects of more cheating in a loss frame, and more cheating in a promotion focus. Furthermore, our data revealed a heretofore undocumented crossover interaction, in accordance with regulatory fit, which could disentangle past results: Specifically, we found promotion focus is associated with more cheating in a loss (vs. gain) frame, whereas prevention focus is associated with more cheating in a gain (vs. loss) frame. In gridiron football, this translates to offensive players fouling more when their team is losing (vs. winning) and defensive players fouling more when their team is winning (vs. losing).
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Conflicting obligations in human social life. Behav Brain Sci 2020; 43:e72. [PMID: 32349800 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x19002425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Tomasello describes how the sense of moral obligation emerges from a shared perspective with collaborative partners and in-group members. Our commentary expands this framework to accommodate multiple social identities, where the normative standards associated with diverse group memberships can often conflict with one another. Reconciling these conflicting obligations is argued to be a central part of human morality.
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Air pollution: A systematic review of its psychological, economic, and social effects. Curr Opin Psychol 2020; 32:52-65. [DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 79] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2019] [Revised: 06/20/2019] [Accepted: 06/21/2019] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
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