Originally conceptualized by Bandura as the process of cognitive restructuring that allows individuals to disassociate with their internal moral standards and behave unethically without feeling distress, moral disengagement has attracted the attention of management researchers in recent years. An increasing body of research has examined the factors which lead people to morally disengage and its related outcomes in the workplace. However, the conceptualization of moral disengagement, how it should be measured, the manner in which it develops, and its influence on (...) work outcomes are areas of continued debate among researchers. In this article, we undertake a systematic review of research on moral disengagement in the workplace and develop a comprehensive research agenda that highlights opportunities for theoretical and empirical advancement of the literature. (shrink)

Pride has rarely been explored in the context of moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. Although some research has examined the associations between “authentic” and “hubristic” pride and unethical behaviour, little attention has been paid to potential mechanisms. Across two correlational studies (N = 379), we explore the associations between two facets of pride rooted on comparisons – social comparison-based pride, and self-based pride, moral disengagement, and unethical decision-making. Results show that social comparison-based pride consistently (positively) relates to moral disengagement, and (...) that moral disengagement accounts for the association between social comparison-based pride and unethical decision-making. In sum, our findings contribute in novel ways to the understanding of how pride based in different comparison frames may lead to antisocial decision-making. (shrink)

Research on the antecedents of consumers’ ethical beliefs has mainly examined cognitive variables and has neglected the relationships among affective variables and consumer ethics. However, research in moral psychology indicates that moral emotions have a significant role in ethical decision-making. Thus, the ability to experience, perceive and regulate emotions should influence consumers’ ethical decision-making. These abilities, which are components of emotional intelligence, are examined as antecedents to consumers’ ethical beliefs in this study. Five hundred Australian consumers participated in this study (...) by completing an online questionnaire that included measures of emotional intelligence, consumers’ ethical beliefs and personal moral philosophies. Results demonstrate that the ability to appraise and express emotions in oneself is directly negatively related to beliefs regarding actively benefiting from illegal actions as a consumer, passively benefiting at the expense of the seller and actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions as a consumer. The ability to appraise and express emotions in oneself is directly positively related to beliefs regarding ‘doing-good’ actions. The ability to appraise and recognise emotions in others is also directly positively related to beliefs regarding ‘doing-good’ actions as well as pro-environmental buying actions. The effects of the different components of emotional intelligence on consumers’ ethical beliefs are mediated by personal moral philosophies. This study demonstrates the relationship between emotional intelligence and consumer ethics and highlights the interplay of affect and cognition in consumers’ ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Moral disengagement was initially conceptualized as a process through which people reconstrue unethical behaviors, with the effect of deactivating self-sanctions and thereby clearing the way for ethical transgressions. Our article challenges how researchers now conceptualize moral disengagement. The current literature is overly liberal, in that it mixes two related but distinct constructs—process moral disengagement and the propensity to morally disengage—creating ambiguity in the findings. It is overly conservative, as it adopts a challengeable classification scheme of “four points in moral self-regulation” (...) and perpetuates defining moral disengagement via a set of eight psychological mechanisms, narrowing our understanding of the phenomenon. To address these problems, we propose to define process moral disengagement intensionally (specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for correct application of the term) as intrapsychic cognitive reasoning processes through which people selectively reconstrue a moral judgment “behavior B by actor A is morally wrong” and shift it toward becoming “behavior B is not morally wrong” or “actor A is not responsible for behavior B.” This definition achieves disambiguation and increased concept clarity. We leverage the definition to motivate a classification scheme for psychological mechanisms of moral disengagement along two dimensions—reconstruing morality and reconstruing agency—and to initiate an open inventory of psychological mechanisms that specify how process moral disengagement operates. (shrink)

Previous literature has demonstrated that ethical leadership could predict employees’ voice behavior. However, it’s not clear how to heighten these positive effects of ethical leadership on employees’ voice behavior. Building on the AET and moral disengagement studies, we developed an integrated model. A three-wave field study investigated the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior by focusing on the mediating role of employees’ affective commitment and the moderating role of employees’ moral disengagement. Our matched data analysis results indicated that: employees’ (...) affective commitment partly mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ voice behavior. In addition, employees’ moral disengagement moderated the effect of ethical leadership on employees’ affective commitment and the effect of employees’ affective commitment on voice behavior, similarly, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employees’ voice behavior via employees’ affective commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

This study explores how financial executives retrospectively account for their crossing the line into financial statement fraud while acting within or reacting to a financialized corporate environment. We conduct our investigation through face-to-face interviews with 13 former C-suite financial executives who were involved in and indicted for major cases of accounting fraud. Five different themes of accounts emerged from the narratives, characterizing executives’ fraud immersion as a meaning-making process by which the particulars of the proximal social context and individual motivations (...) collectively molded executives’ vocabularies of fraud immersion. Our executives’ narratives portray their fraud entanglement as typically occurring in small, incremental steps. Their accounts expand our understanding of the influence of socialization on executive-level financial fraud beyond the individualized focus of the fraud triangle model. (shrink)

We bring the distinct and complementary existentialist perspectives of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to bear on the phenomenon of moral disengagement in managerial decision-making. Existentialist thinking is a rich source of insight on this phenomenon, because—as we demonstrate—the concept of moral disengagement overlaps significantly with the notion of ‘a consciousness in bad faith’ in Sartre’s writing, and the notion of ‘not willing oneself free’ in De Beauvoir’s writing. These concepts play a critical role in existentialist ethics, and thus (...) existentialists carefully deliberated the phenomenon that these concepts aim to illuminate. Rather than being motivated by self-interest as implied by the bulk of extant empirical work on moral disengagement, existentialist perspectives suggest that moral disengagement can instead be motivated by an overwhelming sense of responsibility towards diverse others. From an existentialist perspective, the temptation to morally disengage will not only be felt by individuals that have a strong, trait-like propensity for moral disengagement, but by managers in general. This temptation is likely to be felt in the specific context of right vs. right dilemmas, which have up to now rarely been studied by moral disengagement scholars. Even though existentialist thought paints the problem of moral disengagement as more widespread and entrenched in the human condition, it also suggests ways of preventing moral disengagement. In arguing for these preventative approaches, we make careful distinctions between Sartre and De Beauvoir, thereby becoming the first to argue that De Beauvoir offers a unique contribution to our understanding of ethical decision-making in management. (shrink)

Functional language has been used in many multinational corporations as a way to overcome the problems caused by the coexistence of multiple languages in the workplace. The existing literature has explored the importance, adoption, and effectiveness of functional language. Yet, how functional language shapes host country employees’ moral cognition and behavior is insufficiently researched. Guided by the Social Identity Theory, this manuscript shows that host country employees’ functional language proficiency enhances their unethical pro-organizational behavior through their linguistic group identification and (...) moral disengagement. We tested our predictions using the data collected from 309 full-time host country employees through an online survey, and the results generally supported our hypotheses. The findings make contributions to both international management and language literature and organizational moral behavior literature. (shrink)

We introduce the concept of fraud tolerance, validate the conceptualization using prior studies in economics and criminology as well as our own independent tests, and explore the relationship of fraud tolerance with numerous cultural attributes using data from the World Values Survey. Applying partial least squares path modeling, we find that people with stronger self-enhancing values exhibit higher fraud tolerance. Further, respondents who believe in the importance of hard work exhibit lower fraud tolerance, and such beliefs mediate the relationship between (...) locus of control and fraud tolerance. Finally, we find that people prone to traditional gender stereotypes demonstrate higher fraud tolerance and document subtle differences in the influence of these cultural attributes across age, religiosity, and gender groups. Our study contributes to research on corporate governance, ethics, and the antecedents of work-place dishonesty. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) is unethical behavior driven by an intention to assist an organization. This study is one of the first attempts to examine the consequences of UPB. We argue that such types of behaviors can induce failure in self-regulation and thereby give rise to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Based on self-regulation theory, we theorize that the breakdown in three fundamental mechanisms (i.e., moral standards, monitoring, and discipline) explains the link between UPB and CWB. Moreover, moral identity internalization can (...) temper these breakdown processes such that employees with higher levels of moral identity internalization are less likely to experience moral disengagement, workplace entitlement, or self-control depleting after enacting UPB, and therefore, will engage in less CWB. We conducted a 7-day experience sampling study of 95 financial service employees in a Chinese bank to test our theoretical model. The results indicated that transgressions committed with the intention of helping the organization would ultimately harm the organization, especially for those with lower moral identity internalization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although narcissism is an important factor influencing entrepreneurial activity and outcomes, not much research has been conducted on the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurship. To summarize the current literature on this relationship and provide an agenda for further in-depth research, a systematic review was conducted based on the PRISMA guidelines using Web of Science, Elsevier ScienceDirect, and EBSCO host databases. Accordingly, 33 articles have been identified as being eligible for the final synthesis. The findings of the present study showed, in (...) general, that (1) life history theory, person-environment fit theory (P-E theory), and career choice theory were mostly used to explore the topic of narcissism and entrepreneurial intention, social exchange theory was used to analyze narcissistic entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial motives and attitudes, and upper echelons theory (UET) was applied to research on the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurial outcomes, (2) Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and narcissistic sub-dimension of the Dark Triad were frequently used self-report scales among 23 identified empirical studies, and (3) narcissism has both bright and dark sides to entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. While narcissism makes potential entrepreneurs have higher entrepreneurial intentions and greater willingness to take risks, it also prevents entrepreneurs from discovering opportunities, acquiring resources, and learning from failure. Besides, results also showed that relations between narcissism and entrepreneurial intentions and performance are more complex. For a deeper understanding of this complex relations and advancing research on narcissism and entrepreneurship, more research is necessary to explore the relations between narcissism and entrepreneurship-related variables from a temporal perspective and at the team level, examine the relationship between narcissism and entrepreneurship ethics, and investigate the interaction effects of narcissism and other personalities. (shrink)

The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades has fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical (...) climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. Structural equation modelling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were independently related to organizational identification and moral disengagement. These, in turn, mediated the effects of ethical climates on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach, and present some practical implications of our findings. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship has been highlighted as one of the major forces in addressing significant economic, social, and environmental challenges. These challenges have raised new ethical questions, leading to an explosive growth of research at the intersection of ethics and entrepreneurship. This study provides an overview of the evolution of the scientific literature on the interplay between ethics and entrepreneurship to propose a research proposition with standardized protocols and a broad time limit. Specifically, in a hybrid literature review, 516 articles from peer-reviewed (...) journals indexed in Scopus were analyzed. The review revealed that the field mainly comprises six themes. Through the analysis of each theme, gaps are identified and structured and used to build theoretical proposals for future research agendas applied to current societal challenges. Understanding the link between entrepreneurship and ethics guides practices improves decisions, addresses challenges, promotes sustainability, enhances academia, and builds trust, fostering a responsible, beneficial entrepreneurial environment for society and the economy. (shrink)

It would seem, on the surface, logical that entrepreneurs would treat stakeholders with honesty and respect. However, this is not always the case—at times, entrepreneurs lie to stakeholders in order to take a step closer to achieving legitimacy. It is these legitimacy lies that are the focus of the current work. Overall, while we know that legitimacy lies are told, we know very little about the psychological processes at work that may make it more likely for someone to tell a (...) legitimacy lie. Thus, we theorize about the pressure to pursue legitimacy, the situational and individual factors that affect this pursuit, as well as how this context can lead to moral disengagement and the telling of legitimacy lies. Our theorizing advances the existing literature and provides a dynamic framework by which future research can delve more deeply into the nuanced context that breeds the escalation of legitimacy lies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT To date, over forty-seven studies have examined the antecedents and outcomes of Moral Disengagement mechanisms used to rationalize unethical behavior. However, none have examined its relationship with mindful awareness, either as a trait or set of everyday applications. Our study demonstrates that trait mindfulness is negatively correlated with all MD mechanisms. The tendency to apply decentering and relaxation is positively correlated with all MD mechanisms while stopping and reappraisal trend toward positive relationships and savoring shows no correlation. We discuss (...) potential reasons for these disparate relationships and implications for mindfulness-based interventions in the workplace. (shrink)

Previous research demonstrates the critical role moral disengagement plays in unethical decision-making. This study investigates the relationships among moral endorsement, shareholder-value orientation, moral disengagement, and moral judgment on issues of different moral intensities. The results of a scenario-based survey conducted in China confirm the negative (positive) impact of moral disengagement (moral intensity) on moral judgment. The findings reveal that both moral endorsement and shareholder-value orientation of decision-makers significantly influence moral judgment and that moral intensity moderates the relationships between moral endorsement (...) and moral judgment, and between shareholder-value orientation and moral disengagement. The study’s theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and limitations are discussed. (shrink)

Academic cheating has become a pervasive practice from primary schools to university. This study aims at investigating this phenomenon through a nomological network which integrates different theoretical frameworks and models, such as trait and social-cognitive theories and models regarding the approaches to learning and contextual/normative environment. Results on a sample of more than 200 Italian university students show that the Amoral Manipulation facet of Machiavellianism, Academic Moral Disengagement, Deep Approach to Learning and Normative Academic Cheating are significantly associated with Individual (...) Academic Cheating. Moreover, results show a significant latent interaction effect between Normative Academic Cheating and Amoral Manipulation Machiavellianism: "amoral Machiavellians" students are more prone to resort to Academic Cheating in contexts where Academic Cheating is adopted as a practice by their peers, while this effect is not significant in contexts where Academic Cheating is not normative. Results also show that Academic Moral Disengagement and Deep Approach to learning partially mediate the relationship between Amoral Manipulation and Academic Cheating. Practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)