组织承诺和亲组织的非伦理行为关系:道德认同的调节作用

亲组织的非伦理行为(unethical pro-organizational behaviors,UPB)指员工为了其所属的组织利益而从事有违伦理的行为。研究探讨了组织承诺与UPB的关系,以及道德认同在其间的调节作用。研究发现,组织承诺与内化道德认同、象征化道德认同对UPB的影响存在三元交互的关系;组织承诺对UPB的影响主要体现在低内化道德认同/高象征化道德认同者中。

The Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviors: the Moderating Role of Moral Identity

Unethical pro-organizational behaviors (UPB) refer to employees’ unethical behavior for the benefits of organization. In this study we focus the interactive influence on UPB of the two factors of organizational commitment and moral identity. While empirical evidence indicates these two factors may shed light on prediction of UPB, prior research on UPB is relatively limited. We propose that moral identity moderates the relationship between organizational commitment and UPB, as discussed by Umpress, Bingham, & Mitchell, M. S. (2010). Specifically, we discriminate the two kinds of moral identity, internalization and symbolization, in order to test their influence on the relationship between organizational commitment and UPB. 289 participants of this research are sampled from employees of shopping malls in Hangzhou. The data is collected by three questionnaires about moral identity, organizational commitment and UPB, respectively. Age, gender, position and length of service are taken as controls. We start with revising the Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviors questionnaires and after checking its reliability and validity, we move on to perform correlations and moderate regressions. The results suggest that the correlation of UPB with moral identity is significantly negative, while its correlation with organizational commitment is positive but not significant. It is supposed that the violation of UPB with deontic ethnics limits the effect of organizational commitment towards UPB. There is also a three-way interaction indicating the different influence of internalized and symbolic moral identity on the relationship between organizational commitment and UPB. Individuals high in organizational commitment are more likely to demonstrate UPB if they hold low internalized moral identity and high symbolic moral identity at the same time. The present study contributes to broaden the theories of UPB, which is quite few currently. Given the collective context of our culture, such lack of research on organizational behavior is quite confusing. Our research reveals the negative impact of organizational commitment on individual organizational behavior for employees with low moral identity. It further separates the effect from two dimensions of moral identities. Symbolic moral identity, not a one-to-one relationship, inspired by certain external situation, may lead to UPB, while internalized moral identity would prevent one from UPB. Our results may also give employers a better understanding of organizational management. Although UPB is beneficial for the organizational interest temporarily, it does harm to the reputation of an enterprise in long term. For management it is necessary to balance the relationship between organizational profits and public ethnics. Our finding also indicates the dark side of organizational commitment that it may cause confusion on the moral rules of employees. As with nearly any research endeavor, several limitations are present in the work we discussed.