Rational Counterattack: The Impact of Workplace Bullying on Unethical Pro-organizational and Pro-family Behaviors

The Impact of Work-Related Use of Information and Communication Technologies After Hours on Time Theft

“…Chinese state media reports that government employees often spend their working days doing things unrelated to work, such as playing mah-jongg, playing computer games, sleeping, and shopping online (Wei, 2020 ; Zhu, 2017 ). Such behaviors are unethical because they do not conform to social or organizational moral rules, laws, and norms (Dang et al, 2017 ; Kaptein, 2011 ; Liu et al, 2020 ; Yao et al, 2021 ). For example, standards of China’s professional ethics require employees to love their jobs and uphold a high level of engagement in the organization.…”

“…Some scholars have found that before employees exhibit negative behaviors (e.g., knowledge hiding, unethical behavior, and counterproductive work behavior), they often experience emotional and cognitive changes (Chen et al, 2020 ; Fida et al, 2015 ; Samnani et al, 2014 ; Yao et al, 2020 , 2021 ). W_ICTs will consume a large amount of employees’ emotional and cognitive resources.…”

“…W_ICTs will consume a large amount of employees’ emotional and cognitive resources. If these resources are not timely supplemented, individuals will experience emotional exhaustion and cognitive changes, and, thus, affect their time theft (Xie et al, 2018 ; Yao et al, 2020 , 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ). To better understand the reasons and ways in which W_ICTs influences employee time theft, we draw on the logical framework of cognitive–affective personality system theory (CAPS, Mischel & Shoda, 1995 ; Yao et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ).…”

“…If these resources are not timely supplemented, individuals will experience emotional exhaustion and cognitive changes, and, thus, affect their time theft (Xie et al, 2018 ; Yao et al, 2020 , 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ). To better understand the reasons and ways in which W_ICTs influences employee time theft, we draw on the logical framework of cognitive–affective personality system theory (CAPS, Mischel & Shoda, 1995 ; Yao et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ). CAPS believes that when an individual is exposed to an external stimulus or event, his or her affective and cognitive units are activated and ultimately affect the individual’s behavior.…”

“…In this logic, emotional exhaustion reflects the number of emotional resources (affective unit) an individual has (Yao et al, 2020 ), and moral disengagement reflects the cognitive tendency (cognitive unit) of individuals to relieve the psychological burden caused by their unethical behaviors (Dang et al, 2017 ; Schaefer & Bouwmeester, 2020 ). After experiencing the consumption of emotional resources, individuals will form rational cognition, so emotional exhaustion will also have an impact on moral disengagement (Fida et al, 2015 ; Huang et al, 2019 ; Yao et al, 2021 ). Therefore, we also construct a chain-mediating pathway to more comprehensively explore the entire process of emotional and cognitive resource changes that an individual experiences after suffering from W_ICTs, which ultimately affects his/her behavior.…”