Study On The Contagion Effect Of Unethical Behavior Among Members Within Organization

Recent high-profile corporate scandals have drawn considerable attention to unethical behavior in the workplace. Previous studies have shown that not only the characteristics of individual, organizational environment and moral issue antecedents of unethical behavior but also colleagues’ behavior has significant influence on unethical behavior in the workplace. An employee does not work independently, but is embedded in the organizational internal social networks. So unethical behavior conducted by someone can cause same or similar activities for other members in the same organization, that is, this behavior will spread all around the workplace. Compared with isolated individual unethical behaviors, the study of the contagion effect of unethical behavior has obvious theoretical and practical significance. Moreover, it is necessary for us to clarify its mediating mechanism and boundary conditions to effectively curb the the contagion effect of unethical behavior.Researchers have paid attention to the contagion effect of unethical behavior in organizations, however, they have not yet conducted in-depth analyses of the mediating mechanism of the contagion effect of unethical behavior.The existing studies mainly discuss the mediating mechanism of vicarious learning from the perspective of social learning theory, that is, colleagues’unethical behavior will be set as the example for individuals in the workplace, leading to contagion effect. While not disputing the significant role played by social learning theory, we believe that added insight can be provided by considering alternative theoretical perspectives. For instance, social information processing suggest that unethical co-work behavior can cause a distortion in individual values and may come to be viewed as an acceptable and appropriate way. Consequently, the individual is likely to replicate this activities. From this point of view, moral justification and vicarious learning can be regarded as an alternative approach to investigating mediating mechanism of the contagious process of unethical behavior.Moreover, studies on the contextual factors that influence the contagion effect of unethical behavior remain to be further improved. Social learning theory suggest that models influence observer behavior through outcome expectations, which refer to the extent to which individuals believe that their behavior will produce positive or negative outcomes. If individuals observe a model being rewarded for a particular behavior, then this reinforces the notion that the behavior is more likely to be imitated. If individuals observe models being punished for their behavior, then reduces the likelihood that the behavior will be imitated. Manager’s close supervision increased the possibility that unethical behavior will be found and lead to changes in individual outcome expectations, thus reducing the modeling effect of co-work’s unethical behavior on individual. Social information processing theory suggests that individual’s identity schemas can affect his interpretation of social information Organizational identification is a concrete form of social identification. Individual with different levels of organizational identification will form different views of colleagues’unethical behavior. Individuals with high level of organizational identification tend to make a more harsh moral evaluation to colleagues’unethical behavior, and change his willing to imitation. Therefore, both close supervision and organizational identification can influence the contagion effect of unethical behavior.A number of explanations have been proposed as to why employees engage in unethical behavior:to harm the organization and/or stakeholders, or helping the organization (namely Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior, UPB). Previous studies mainly focus on the unethical behavior that harm the organization, which can be called Unethical Anti-organizational Behavior (UAB), but neglecting UPB. It remains to be seen:Whether there is a differences between the contagion effect of these two kinds of unethical behavior, If there is, which factors cause this difference; Whether leadership supervision and organizational identification have the same moderate mechanism on the the contagion effect of these two kinds of unethical behavior; Whether the vicarious learning and moral justification play the same mediating mechanism in the contagion process of these two types of unethical behavior. It is unfortunate, however, that these problems have not been satisfactorily solved yet. The solutions to the problems may further broaden the field of unethical behavior. In addition, these solutions may effectively provide interventional strategies for weakening the contagion effect of unethical behavior.This study has successively collected three sample data by using enterprise staff questionnaire. A primary exploration related to the previous problems can be conducted by using the statistical analyses of the first sample data collected via a single questionnaire, including the two kinds of unethical behavior. The fundamental results based on the first sample show that the single questionnaire can lead to confusion for respondents, which may influence the preciseness of the conclusions. Therefore, it is necessary for us to separate the two types of unethical behavior to respectively conduct the survey during the process of data collection. Moreover, the second and third sample data are collected by using the temporally lagged design (carrying out questionnaire survey at multiple time points). The results of the analyses of this three samples show the following:(1)Co-worker’s unethical behavior has significant positive effect on individual unethical behaviors. The contagion effect of UPB is greater than that of UAB.(2)Close supervision moderates and attenuate the contagion effect of UAB, and moderates and strengthen the contagion effect of UPB.(3)Organizational identification moderates and strengthen the contagion effect of UPB and the moderate effect on that of UAB is not significant.(4)Moral justification partially mediates the contagion process of the two types of unethical behavior.(5)Vicarious learning plays a mediating role in the contagion process of UAB, but has no significant mediating effect on UPB.(6)The interaction item of colleagues’ UPB and leadership supervision influences individual UPB through the mediating effect of moral justification(7) The interaction item of colleagues’UPB and organizational identification influences individual UPB through the mediating effect of moral justification.Finally, this study sheds light on implications for the relative theories and practices. It also points out its limitations and provides directions for future research.