Unethical Prosocial Behavior: Theory Development and Experimental Findings

• Main Author: Herchen, Julia L.
• Other Authors: Davis, Mark Alan
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of North Texas 2015
• Subjects: unethical prosocial behavior; discretionary workplace behavior; behavioral ethics; Business ethics.; Social interaction.
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc804877/

Job performance has historically been divided into two subsets, that which is prescribed and that which is discretionary. Further, discretionary workplace behavior has typically been described as either helpful or ethical (i.e. organizational citizenship behavior) or harmful and unethical (i.e. workplace deviance behavior) with behavior that is both helpful and unethical rarely discussed. I term this lesser discussed type of discretionary workplace behavior unethical prosocial behavior and define it as discretionary actions that are intended to benefit a specific referent outside the self, either an individual or a group, that are illegal and/or morally inappropriate to larger society. In addition to defining unethical prosocial behavior, this paper places the behavior in an organizing framework of discretionary workplace behaviors and tests several hypotheses regarding unethical prosocial behavior. The hypotheses address three primary research questions. First, are there contextual conditions that make it more likely that a person will engage in unethical prosocial behavior? Second, does the nature of the relationship between the actor and the beneficiary make unethical prosocial behavior more or less likely? And third, are there individual characteristics that serve to either constrain or enhance the likelihood that and individual will engage in unethical prosocial behavior? A 2 x 2 experimental design was used to test these hypotheses. As expected, in-group (vs. out-group) salience increased the likelihood of UPB. Individuals in the in-group condition engaged in significantly greater UPBs than those in the out-group condition. Contrary to expectations, shared reward (vs. no reward) decreased the likelihood of UPB. Individuals who were due a reward engaged less in UPBs than those who were not due a reward. Possible explanations for this relationship (both methodological and theoretical) are explored. While the overall effect of reward structure on UPB was in the opposite direction from that which was expected, propensity to morally disengage had the anticipated effect on the relationship between rewards and UPB. Those high in propensity to morally disengage were more likely to engage in UPB when a shared reward was offered (vs. no reward). Due to the nature of the task and the data collected, it was possible to operationalize UPB as a continuous measure as well as a dichotomous event (UPB/no UPB). This lead to a supplemental analysis that shed additional light on the nature of the relationship between group salience and UPB. The analysis shows that not only do subjects tend to over report the scores for fellow in-group members, but they also tend to underreport scores for out-group members. Fruitful areas for future work on the nascent UPB construct are discussed.