Why Employees Do Bad Things: Moral Disengagement and Unethical Organizational Behavior

Abstract

We examine the influence of individuals' propensity to morally disengage on a broad range of unethical organizational behaviors. First, we develop a parsimonious, adult-oriented, valid, and reliable measure of an individual's propensity to morally disengage, and demonstrate the relationship between it and a number of theoretically relevant constructs in its nomological network. Then, in 4 additional studies spanning laboratory and field settings, we demonstrate the power of the propensity to moral disengage to predict multiple types of unethical organizational behavior. In these studies we demonstrate that the propensity to morally disengage predicts several outcomes (self-reported unethical behavior, a decision to commit fraud, a self-serving decision in the workplace, and supervisor-and coworker-reported unethical work behaviors) beyond other established individual difference antecedents of unethical organizational behavior, as well as the most closely related extant measure of the construct. We conclude that scholars and practitioners seeking to understand a broad range of undesirable workplace behaviors can benefit from taking an individual's propensity to morally disengage into account. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.A host of ethical debacles across a wide range of contexts has inspired growing interest in studying and understanding why individuals engage in the kind of behavior that leads to enormous costs-trillions

A social-cognitive approach to understanding gender differences in negotiator ethics: The role of moral identity

“…The current research considers whether gender differences in moral disengagement operate in tandem with expected moral identity differences to predict ethical behavior. Early research linked moral disengagement to less prosocial behavior and greater aggression among children (Bandura et al, 1996), with more recent research linking it to unethical decision-making (Detert et al, 2008;Moore et al, 2012), vindictiveness (Aquino et al, 2007), social undermining (Duffy, Scott, Shaw, Tepper, & Aquino, 2012), and unethical work behavior as perceived by others (Moore et al, 2012). Overall then and consistent with prior research, we expected that, by helping negotiators to ignore their ethical standards, gender differences in moral disengagement would result in gender differences in unethical negotiating behavior.…”

“…Having established gender differences in moral identity strength, Study 2 shifted the focus to demonstrate that, consistent with prior research (e.g., Bandura et al, 1996;Detert et al, 2008;Moore et al, 2012), women morally disengage less than men in negotiations and therefore engage in unethical negotiating behavior to a lesser extent (Hypothesis 2). We examined gender differences in intentions to engage in opportunistic behavior by distorting information and reneging on implicit and explicit commitments (Jap & Anderson, 2003;Malhotra & Gino, 2011) within the context of a distributive negotiation involving the sale of a used car with a known defect.…”

“…Prior research has documented less moral disengagement among girls and women, relative to boys (Bandura et al, 1996) and men (Chugh, Kern, Zhu, & Lee, 2014;Detert, Trevino, & Sweitzer, 2008). This gender difference is robust to context, emerging with respect to behavior at work (Moore, Detert, Trevino, Baker, & Mayer, 2012), in sports (Boardley & Kavussanu, 2007), at school (Bandura et al, 1996), in the military (McAlister, Bandura, & Owen, 2006), and civically (Caprara, Fida, Vecchione, Tramontano, & Barbaranelli, 2009).…”

Authenticity, employee silence, prohibitive voice, and the moderating effect of organizational identification

“…In the first stage, they need to recognize that the status quo needs to be challenged, for example, when one deems that a product may harm the customers. In this recognition stage, prohibitive voice might not occur because employees refrain from reflecting on a problem, trivialize the problem, reject responsibility, or feel uncertain regarding the accuracy of their judgments (Bandura, 1999;Moore, Detert, Trevino, Baker, & Mayer, 2012). In the second stage, employees need to express their concerns to someone who is able to effect change, for example, addressing in a meeting the idea that current processes lack effectiveness.…”

Moral disengagement, the dark triad, and unethical consumer attitudes

“…Neutralisation, false-returning purchased items as "faulty" or "unwanted" (associated with thrill-seeking and less self-consciousness), anticipated guilt following unethical consumer activity, and the influence of guilt and opportunism on receiving too much change at a supermarket checkout have all been examined (De Bock & Van Kenhove, 2011;Harris, 2008;Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2006;Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2005). Moore et al's (2012) systematic studies into moral disengagement in occupational settings measured Machiavellianism alongside measures of empathy and perspective-taking, finding these predictors associated with a greater ability to morally disengage, their effect was replicated across two studies, while a fourth study found Moral disengagement and the Dark Triad: 4 dispositional guilt negatively correlated with the propensity to morally disengage. All of these studies touch on aspects of the relationship between general personality, moral disengagement, the Dark Triad, and unethical consumer activity, but none studied the dispositional foundations upon which their findings arguably stand.…”