Employee unethical behavior continues to be an area of interest as real-world business scandals persist. We investigate what happens after people engage in unethical behavior. Drawing from emotion theories (e.g., Tangney & Dearing, 2002) and the self-presentation literature (e.g., Leary & Miller, 2000), we first argue that people are socialized to experience shame after moral violations (Hypothesis 1). People then manage their shame and try to protect their self-images by engaging in exemplification behaviors (i.e., self-sacrificial behaviors that give the attribution of being a dedicated person; Hypothesis 2). We also examine the moderating role of supervisor bottom-line mentality (BLM; i.e., a supervisor's singular focus on pursuing bottom-line outcomes) in relation to our theoretical model. We argue that high supervisor BLM intensifies the employee unethical behavior to shame relationship (Hypothesis 3) and results in heightened exemplification as a way to protect one's self-image by portraying the self as a dedicated person who is worthy of association (Hypothesis 4). We test our theoretical model across 2 experimental studies and 2 field studies. Although our results provide general support for Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, our results produced mixed findings for Hypothesis 4. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Are supervisors who care more about profits than employee well-being seen by employees as being good exchange partners? How do employees perceive and respond to supervisors who treat the bottom line as more important than anything else? Supervisors who hold a bottom-line mentality (BLM) neglect competing priorities such as employee well-being and ethical practices to focus on securing bottom-line success. We find high-BLM supervisors serve as low-quality exchange partners with their employees, resulting in employee perceptions of low-quality leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships. In turn, employees reciprocate by withholding the very thing the supervisor desires—performance—in order to maintain balance in the exchange relationship. As such, supervisors who possess a BLM could actually be negatively impacting the organization’s bottom line through the harmful social exchange relationships they engender with their employees and their impact on employee task performance. We also examine the moderating role of employee BLM on these relationships. When employee BLM is low, we observe a greater negative effect on employee value judgments of the supervisor (i.e. reduced LMX perceptions) and lower employee performance. We test and find support for all of our hypotheses in two multi-source (i.e. employee-supervisor dyads), time-lagged field studies ( N = 189 and N = 244).

Drawing on trait activation theory, we examine a person-situation interactionist model to predict unethical behavior in organizations. In particular, we examine abusive supervision as a condition under which employee Machiavellianism (Mach) is activated and thus more strongly predicts unethical behavior. We offer a more fine-grained analysis of the Mach–trait activation process by specifically examining the interactive effect of each Mach dimension (viz., Distrust in Others, Desire for Control, Desire for Status, and Amoral Manipulation) and abusive supervision onto unethical behavior. We collected multisource field data to test our hypotheses across two studies. We then tested our theoretical model utilizing an experimental design. The results of our field studies indicate that the interaction of amoral manipulation and abusive supervision is the most predictive of unethical behavior, whereas our experimental findings indicate that the interaction of desire for control and abusive supervision is the primary predictor of unethical behavior. Implications for the Machiavellianism literature and trait activation theory are discussed.

Examined through the lens of moral psychology, we investigate when and why employees’ unethical behaviors may be tolerated versus rejected. Specifically, we examine the interactive effect of employees’ unethical behaviors and job performance onto relationship conflict, and whether such conflict eventuates in workplace ostracism. Although employees’ unethical behaviors typically go against moral norms, high job performance may provide a motivated reason to ignore moral violations. In this regard, we predict that job performance will mitigate the relationship between employee unethical behavior and workplace ostracism, as mediated by relationship conflict. Study 1, a multisource field study, tests and provides support for Hypotheses 1 and 2. Study 2, also a multisource field study, provides support for our fully specified model. Study 3, a time‐lagged field study, provides support for our theoretical model while controlling for employees’ negative affectivity and ethical environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

We integrate deontological ethics (Folger, 1998, 2001; Kant, 1785/1948, 1797/1991) with conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to propose that an employee's repeated exposure to violations of moral principle can diminish the availability of resources to appropriately attend to other personal and work domains. In particular, we identify customer unethical behavior as a morally charged work demand that leads to a depletion of resources as captured by employee emotional exhaustion. In turn, emotionally exhausted employees experience higher levels of work-family conflict, relationship conflict with coworkers, and job neglect. Employee emotional exhaustion serves as the mediator between customer unethical behavior and such outcomes. To provide further evidence of a deontological effect, we demonstrate the unique effect of customer unethical behavior onto emotional exhaustion beyond perceptions of personal mistreatment and trait negative affectivity. In Study 1, we found support for our theoretical model using multisource field data from customer-service professionals across a variety of industries. In Study 2, we also found support for our theoretical model using multisource, longitudinal field data from service employees in a large government organization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).