How do employees react to leaders’ unethical behavior? The role of moral disengagement

Abstract

Concerns over unethical leader behavior persist in today's workplace. Although some employees continue to support their leaders after learning of their unethical actions, others do not. In this paper, we integrate social cognitive theory with social information processing theory to propose that the support employees give to leaders who act unethically hinges on their propensity to morally disengage.Specifically, we develop a conditional indirect effects model, wherein moral disengagement propensity mitigates the negative impact of unethical leader behavior on leader-directed support via employees' perceptions of value congruence with and trust in the leader. The sum result is an improved understanding of when and why employees offer support to versus withhold support from leaders who act in ethically questionable ways.

The study of behavioral ethics within organizations: A special issue introduction

“…Like Fehr et al. (), Umphress et al. also suggested that employees’ trait MDP influences their reactions, making them more likely to engage in unethical behavior.…”

“…To be sure, narrative reviews of behavioral ethics literature have emphasized the application of SIPT to explain ethics phenomena (e.g., Tenbrunsel & Smith‐Crowe, ; Treviño et al., ). Three papers within this special issue relied on SIPT to explain how employees turn to leader behavior (Fehr et al., ; Kuenzi et al., ), leader communications (Babalola et al., ), and general norms and procedures within the environment (Kuenzi et al., ) to inform their behavior (e.g., customer‐directed incivility, performance, support offered to their leaders, and unethical behavior).…”

“…The third paper, by Fehr et al. (), also pulled from SIPT to explain the negative implications of unethical leader behavior. Integrating SIPT with Bandura's (, ) social cognitive theory, the authors suggested that employee traits (specifically moral disengagement propensity [MDP]; Moore, Detert, Treviño, Baker, & Mayer, ) influence how leader behavior (i.e., unethical leader behavior) informs and guides employee action.…”

“…The results suggest that leaders are a formidable source of such information. Leaders’ behaviors and communications serve as a frame that elicits certain cognitions to achieve organizational goals that can motivate either ethical or unethical acts (Babalola et al., ), inform formal work norms, systems, and structures that shape an EOC and reduce the engagement of unethical behavior (Kuenzi et al., ), and reduce employees’ sense of connection with their leaders (reduced trust and value‐congruence) that motivates employees to withhold support of their leaders (Fehr et al., ). However, leadership and climate are not the only way in which employees’ perceptions and behavior are informed.…”

“…Each of the remaining 48 papers was assigned to one of the three editors for the special issue and was blind‐reviewed by two experts in the field. Ultimately, we accepted four articles that appear in this special issue (Babalola, Greenbaum, Amarnani, Shoss, Deng, Garba, & Guo, ; Fehr, Fulmer, & Keng‐Highberger, ; Kuenzi, Mayer, & Greenbaum, ; Umphress, Gardner, Leavitt, & Stoverink, ). These accepted papers represent an 8% acceptance rate, consistent with the overall acceptance rate for regular submissions to Personnel Psychology .…”