A Moral Balancing Perspective on Employees’ Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

The current paper seeks to develop and test a serial mediation model linking employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and their consequent pro-self and pro-customer deviance. Drawing upon moral balancing theory, cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, and affective events theory, we examine the moral licensing effect of employee UPB on their organizational deviance through feelings of pride and psychological entitlement. Simultaneously, we investigate the moral cleansing effect of employee UPB on their customer-directed prosocial rule breaking via perceived loss of moral credits and feelings of guilt. Additionally, we examine the moderating role of external attribution of UPB on the aforementioned indirect effects. The results based on 340 full-time employees and their supervisors support the proposed serial mediated relationships. The findings further indicate that the strength of those indirect effects varies depending on employees’ external attribution of UPB. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.