Influence of Challenge–Hindrance Stressors on Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Mediating Role of Emotions

Abstract

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), which threatens the sustainable development of enterprises, has become important research content in organizational management in recent years. Based on the framework of challenge–hindrance stressors, we explored the effect of stress on UPB from an emotional perspective. Multi-mediation models were constructed to reveal the relationship between stressors (challenge and hindrance stressors) and UPB, and the mediating roles of individual anxiety, attentiveness, and anger. The results of 375 questionnaires indicated that challenge stressors had no significant relationship with UPB due to the presence of the suppression effect. Challenge stressors had a positive effect on UPB through anxiety and a negative effect on UPB through attentiveness. Hindrance stressors had a positive effect on UPB through the mediation of anxiety and anger. Managers can benefit from the findings to correctly cope with employees’ emotional reactions and unethical behaviors caused by work stress, and take appropriate management measures to reduce and prevent employees’ UPB.

Effects of Leader-Member Exchange, Organizational Identification and Leadership Communication on Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: A Study on Bank Employees in Turkey

“…Mostly drawn from social exchange theory [25,26], reciprocal social exchange mechanisms were argued to play a crucial role in motivating employees to engage in UPB [4][5][6]8,27]. When there is a strong desire to maintain a long-term employment relationship with the organization or to avoid the negative consequences of failing to meet the organization's requirements, employees may move away from moral boundaries and regulations and become involved in UPB [28,29]. Further, in an environment of high unemployment, employees may undertake UPB to keep their jobs.…”

“…Further, in an environment of high unemployment, employees may undertake UPB to keep their jobs. Similarly, employees at risk of exclusion may turn to UPB to reduce this risk by demonstrating that they can contribute effectively to their workgroup [28]. Employees may also behave in ways that sustain or increase the good self-image of being associated with the employing organization, according to social identity theory [30].…”

Moving Beyond Initiative: The Reconceptualization and Measurement of Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior

“…The notion that UPB represents a somewhat virtuous act only represent an overly simplistic view of one’s UPB motivation ( Lee et al, 2019 ). Some individuals do UPB voluntarily, but others do it just for reasons that they have to Shu (2015) , Thau et al (2015) , Tian and Peterson (2016) , Ghosh (2017) , Lawrence and Kacmar (2017) , Zhao and Zhou (2017) , Zhang et al (2017a) , Xu and Wang (2020) . Unfortunately, current researches have failed to identify a second form of UPB from voluntary UPB, let alone classify different types of UPB.…”

“…Employees may engage in UPB to prove that they are valuable organizational members and they deserve to be valued, particularly when they feel their sense of self is threatened ( Jachimowicz et al, 2018 ). Employees may also conduct UPB to avoid the negative consequence caused by the failure to meet the requirement of their organizations ( Xu and Wang, 2020 ). UPB occurs not merely when employees identify with their organizations, but also when they witness their supervisors engaging in similar behaviors and perceive that their supervisors endorse such behaviors ( Fehr et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Scholars have found that individuals are not actively and voluntarily engaged in UPB, but have to do so under the pressure of certain factors. Such factors may be the pressure from the organization or the leader, the behavior of colleagues, job insecurity, workplace ostracism, high performance demands, performance pressure, psychological empowerment, ethical climates, corporate hypocrisy and so on ( Shu, 2015 ; Thau et al, 2015 ; Tian and Peterson, 2016 ; Ghosh, 2017 ; Lawrence and Kacmar, 2017 ; Zhao and Zhou, 2017 ; Zhang et al, 2017a ; Xu and Wang, 2020 ), which exert external pressure or drive on individuals ( Cheng and Lin, 2019 ). Obviously, in these cases, individuals do not actively engage in UPB out of their organizational identity or positive social exchange.…”