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

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Abstract

In business ethics research, little is known about why and how employees engage in unethical behavior, especially unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and unethical pro-family behavior (UPFB). Based on cognitive-affective personality system theory and conservation of resources theory, this study aims to explore the mechanisms underlying the effects of workplace bullying, as a negative event, on UPB (Study 1) and UPFB (Study 2). In Study 1, workplace bullying negatively correlated with UPB where emotional exhaustion and organization-oriented moral disengagement played chain-mediating roles in this relationship. In Study 2, workplace bullying positively correlated with UPFB where emotional exhaustion and family-oriented moral disengagement played chain-mediating roles in the relationship. In both studies, perceived forgiveness climate, as a conditional factor, was found to weaken the positive impact of workplace bullying on both emotional exhaustion and the chain-mediating effect of emotional exhaustion and moral disengagement in the relationship between workplace bullying and UPB/UPFB. Overall, this study explains why, how, and when employees exhibit UPB and UPFB. The implications for theory and practices that could enable organizations to reduce employees’ unethical behavior are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Thanks are given to one of the reviewers who raised this important issue.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Organizational Behavior and Business Ethics section editor Professor Frank D. Belschak and two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments and suggestions throughout the review process. We also thank Tomoki Sekiguchi, Rea Woods, Neil Lowndes, and Zhengde Xiong for their very helpful comments on the earlier versions, and all participants in this research.

Funding

This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72072128; 71772138), National Social Science Foundation of China (17BJY150) and China Scholarship Council (202006260311).

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Correspondence to Zhu Yao.

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Yao, Z., Luo, J., Fu, N. et al. Rational Counterattack: The Impact of Workplace Bullying on Unethical Pro-organizational and Pro-family Behaviors. J Bus Ethics 181, 661–682 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04918-w

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