When leading by example leads to less corrupt collaboration

Rilke, Rainer Michael; Danilov, Anastasia; Weisel, Ori; Shalvi, Shaul; Irlenbusch, Bernd

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2021.05.007

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“… a One report (Rilke et al, 2021) included treatments with both simultaneous and sequential decisions, and thus appears in both structures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative dishonesty: A meta-analytic review.

Leib¹,

Köbis²,

Soraperra³

et al. 2021

Psychological Bulletin

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Although dishonesty is often a social phenomenon, it is primarily studied in individual settings. However, people frequently collaborate and engage in mutual dishonest acts. We report the first meta-analysis on collaborative dishonesty, analyzing 87,771 decisions (21 behavioral tasks; k = 123; n participants = 10,923). We provide an overview of all tasks used to measure collaborative dishonesty, and inform theory by conducting moderation analyses. Results reveal that collaborative dishonesty is higher (a) when financial incentives are high, (b) in lab than field studies, (c) when third parties experience no negative consequences, (d) in the absence of experimental deception, and (e) when groups consist of more males and (f) younger individuals. Further, in repeated interactions, group members' behavior is correlated-participants lie more when their partners lie-and lying increases as the task progresses. These findings are in line with the justified ethicality theoretical perspective, suggesting prosocial concerns increase collaborative dishonesty, whereas honest-image concerns attenuate it. We discuss how findings inform theory, setting an agenda for future research on the collaborative roots of dishonesty. Public Significance StatementWe present the first meta-analysis on collaborative dishonesty-when groups can lie to increase the group's profits-covering 87,771 decisions made by 10,923 people engaging in 21 different experimental tasks. Results reveal various situational and personal factors shape collaborative dishonesty, including, for example, that group members affect each other's behavior over time. We propose that prosocial and honest-image concerns drive collaborative dishonesty.

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“… a One report (Rilke et al, 2021) included treatments with both simultaneous and sequential decisions, and thus appears in both structures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative dishonesty: A meta-analytic review.

Leib¹,

Köbis²,

Soraperra³

et al. 2021

Psychological Bulletin

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Dating back to Hermalin (1998), economic theories and experimental evidence have suggested that leaders can persuade others to follow their actions by setting an example of "the right" thing to do (Brandts et al, 2016;Güth et al, 2007;Potters et al, 2007;Rilke et al, 2021). Leading by example is "one of the most powerful methods to encourage individuals to work toward a common objective" (Schuhmacher et al, 2021).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Leaders Influence (un)Ethical Behaviors Within Organizations: A Laboratory Experiment on Reporting Choices

2022

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We use a lab experiment to examine whether and how leaders influence workers’ (un)ethical behavior through financial reporting choices. We randomly assign the role of leaders or workers to subjects, who can choose to report an outcome via automatic or self-reporting. Self-reporting allows for profitable and undetectable earnings manipulation. We vary the leaders’ ability to choose the reporting method and to punish workers. We show that workers are more likely to choose automatic reporting when their leader voluntarily does so and can assign punishment. Even workers who choose self-reporting tend to cheat less when their leader chooses automatic reporting. Nonetheless, most leaders do not opt for automatic reporting in the first place: they often choose self-reporting and punish workers who rather choose automatic reporting. Collectively, our results reveal a dual effect of leadership on ethical behaviors in organizations: workers behave more ethically if their leader makes ethical choices, but often leaders do not make ethical choices in the first place. Hence, leading by example can backfire.

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“…For example, is it more important to have highly ethical leaders, or highly ethical subordinates? Despite repeated calls for research into these processes (Avolio, 2007;Hofmans et al, 2019;Thoroughgood et al, 2016), most existing empirical investigations into ethical dynamics do not have any explicit hierarchy (Gross & De Dreu, 2021;Irlenbusch et al, 2020;Weisel & Shalvi, 2015), or concentrate on only one side of the leader-subordinate relationship (Gächter & Renner, 2018;Johnson et al, 2017;Karg et al, 2022), and even fewer investigate mutual influence over time (d'Adda et al, 2017;Rilke et al, 2021). Thus, the purpose of this paper is two-fold: To identify the degree of mutuality influence on ethical behavior from leader to subordinate and from subordinate to leader as they play out in repeated interactions, and to find out how these influences are affected by the underlying respective moral character of the leader and the subordinate.…”

Section: Who's Leading Whom? Mutual Influences In Moral Decision-maki...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Who's leading whom? Mutual influences in moral decision making between leaders and subordinates over time

Karg¹,

Elbæk²,

Mitkidis³

2022

Preprint

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Leaders are frequently said to shape ethical conduct of subordinates in organizations in a top- down manner. Yet, subordinates may also exert important influence on leaders. Building on research on collaborative corruption and ethical leadership, we present two preregistered studies (N = 874) that examine the social dynamics affecting ethical decision-making in leader–subordinate dyads. Using a novel collaborative-cheating task, we study how the mutual influence of leaders on subordinates and of subordinates on leaders unfolds over repeated interactions. We find strong mutualistic influences on ethical behavior in leader– subordinate dyads, and the degree and direction of these influences is moderated by the ethical make-up of these dyads, i.e., the willingness of individual leaders and subordinates to engage in dishonest conduct in the first place. Additionally, we find congruency effects for character judgments such that dyads that cheat together evaluate each other positively and especially competent and close.

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When leading by example leads to less corrupt collaboration

Cited by 11 publications

References 35 publications

Collaborative dishonesty: A meta-analytic review.

Collaborative dishonesty: A meta-analytic review.

How Leaders Influence (un)Ethical Behaviors Within Organizations: A Laboratory Experiment on Reporting Choices

Who's leading whom? Mutual influences in moral decision making between leaders and subordinates over time

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