Ethical Rule Breaking by Employees: A Test of Social Bonding Theory

As employees continue to lie, cheat, and steal from their employers, researchers have tried to help managers understand and possibly predict such deviant behavior. This study considers the specific employee misconduct of ethical rule breaking. Hirschi (1969) suggested that deviant behavior can be better understood by social bonding theory. The social bonding model includes four elements; attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. It is proposed that Hirschi's social bonding theory can be used to understand ethical rule breaking by employees. Using a sample of 200 employees, the results indicate that the social bonding elements of attachment and involvement can be used to better understand the reported likelihood of ethical rule breaking of employees. Recommendations for better applying the social bonding model to ethical rule breaking are suggested.     

Factors affecting employee willingness to report customer feedback

Effectively capturing consumer feedback can help organizations swiftly react and improve the quality of their service processes and delivery systems. In most organizations, frontline employees are a vital source of customer feedback as they interact with customers frequently and intimately. Thus, the current paper seeks to understand the factors influencing employee willingness to report customer feedback up the organizational channels of communication. The conceptual model was tested empirically using data collected from major chain restaurants in Taiwan involving 332 frontline employees. A hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized model. The obtained results demonstrate the impact of service climate, perceived organizational support, and internal locus of control on frontline employees’ willingness to report customer feedback.     

Cross‐national assessment of the effects of income level,socialization process,and social conditions on employees’ ethics

Employees often experience ethical dilemmas throughout their service in an organization. This study utilized a multilevel standpoint to address employees’ differences in ethical reasoning. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze responses from 40,485 full‐time employees across 54 countries. Drawing from Durkheim's concepts of the homo duplex, socialization process, and social conditions, this study found a positive relationship between employees’ income level and unethical reasoning. Furthermore, the results indicate that modern social regulation, technological advancement, economic development, and economic change moderate the relationship between income and ethical judgment. The study findings contribute to the Durkheimian model by validating the effects of individual‐ and country‐level factors on employees’ ethicality. Considering that the results contradict Durkheim's initial propositions, another concept and theory are proposed, which may complement Durkheim's arguments. Practical implications for organizations and society are further discussed to reinforce employees’ ethics.     

Ethical human resource management mitigates the positive association between illegitimate tasks and employee unethical behaviour

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social information processing theory, we developed a moderated mediation model in which moral disengagement was theorised as a unique mechanism to explain why employees engage in unethical behaviours after performing illegitimate tasks. Ethical human resource management (HRM) was proposed as a boundary condition that influences this mechanism. We tested the model using time-lagged supervisor–subordinate matched data. The results showed that moral disengagement mediated the relationship between illegitimate tasks and unethical behaviours, and that this relationship was weaker when ethical HRM was perceived to be high level rather than low level. Thus, our hypotheses were supported. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Users' intentions to employ a Point-Of-Sale system

This study proposes that task, technology, and individual characteristics affect the Point-Of-Sale (POS) utilization of employees in service industry, specifically in restaurants. The integrated technology acceptance model and task–technology fit (TTF) model is appropriate for explaining service employees' behavioral intentions to use POS. Data were obtained from 167 service employees. The hypothesized model resulted in a good fit, supporting all eight proposed hypotheses. The TTF construct was confirmed to be a mediator of task, technology, and individual characteristics affecting intention to use. Our integrated model is expected to help researchers and practitioners better understand why service employees choose POS for their tasks and, further, how the technology characteristics of POS and its fit-with-task characteristics in a service sector lead to service employee choices.     

“一碗水端不平”：领导者宽容差序、职场妒忌及其后果研究

员工犯错时，上级领导可能因差序格局而对不同下属给予不同程度的宽容，出现“一碗水端不平”的现象。领导者的宽容差序造成下属在情感或资源分配上的不平等，为员工之间的社会比较创造了可能。为了揭示领导者宽容差序对员工个体心理和行为的影响，基于社会比较理论，本研究构建了“宽容差序—职场妒忌—行为后果”的平行中介路径模型。通过问卷调研和统计分析，证实了领导者的宽容差序，一方面会增加员工的恶意妒忌，进而引发反生产行为；另一方面会使员工减少善意妒忌，进而减少工作投入。另外，通过间接和总体作用的抽样计算，发现领导者宽容差序总体上会导致员工降低工作投入及增加反生产行为。     

Do employees value strategic CSR? A tale of affective organizational commitment and its underlying mechanisms

Virtually all studies that focus on the relationship between CSR perceptions and employees’ organizational commitment have not taken into consideration the fit between social and environmental activities and a firm’s business‐unit strategy. This is essential to inquire because scholars have argued that when companies ingrain CSR activities into their strategy‐making process (i.e., in their vision, mission, and overall business model), this might send a more compelling message that resonates closer to workers’ personal standards, and actually enhance employee‐level outcomes. Nevertheless, there is no certainty “if” and “how” these evaluations could affect employees’ organizational commitment. To address this issue, we use cue consistency theory and social identity theory as overarching frameworks to develop a model where we conceptually link perceptions of strategy‐CSR fit with a particular type of organizational commitment: affective. In addition, we posit and test three mediators to understand the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship: perceived external prestige, organizational identification, and work meaningfulness. Through structural equation modeling, and using a heterogeneous final sample of 579 employees, we find compelling evidence to support the fact that strategy‐CSR fit enhances employees’ affective organizational commitment through the proposed mediators. Academic contributions and practical implications are then discussed.     

Employee emotional response toward healthcare organization’s service recovery efforts and its influences on service recovery performance

Previous studies on service recovery performance of frontline employees have focused primarily on the direct relationship with the organizational efforts for service recovery. However, based on the reformulation of attitude theory (appraisal-emotional response-behaviour), we believe that the emotional responses (work engagement and burnout) toward organizational efforts for service recovery of frontline employees mediate the relationship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how healthcare frontline employees show their emotional response toward the organizational efforts for service recovery and it influence on actual recovery performance. This study uses two conflicting emotional responses, burnout and work engagement, to examine how employees react toward organizational efforts, helping better understand employees?? evaluations of the efforts. Research model and hypothesis were tested using a sample of frontline employees who perform none-clinical activities in hospitals. The results showed that teamwork and empowerment have positive effects on work engagement. In addition, customer complaint management, empowerment, and teamwork influenced negatively on burnout. Lastly, work engagement and burnout showed statistically significant impact of service recovery performance of frontline employees. Among the organizational efforts for service recovery, teamwork was the most important factor in improving frontline employees?? work engagement and lessened their burnout, respectively. Interestingly, customer service training had a negative effect on burnout. Besides, by comparing our research model to two alternative models, we confirmed the validity of the research model.     

Incorporating Pay Basis into Pay Comparison: The Relationships among Over/Underpayment,Pay for Performance and Pay Level Satisfaction

Drawing on the discrepancy model, we re-examine the impact of pay comparison on employees’ pay level satisfaction by taking pay basis and pay program into account. Actual pay data from 382 Chinese employees, along with their self-reported pay level satisfaction, provides support for our research model. Specifically, results show that the positive effect of over/underpayment on pay level satisfaction is more robust than that of internal pay standing, indicating the importance of pay basis for pay satisfaction perception. In addition, the positive relationship between internal pay standing and pay level satisfaction is weaker among employees who are in a pay program of high pay-for-performance intensity. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Fostering proactive behaviour: The role of work-related reflection,psychological empowerment,and participative safety for innovative behaviour and job crafting

This contribution aimed at investigating how work-related reflection as cognitive efforts towards developing an understanding of work tasks, the surrounding work context, and one's professional competencies adds to the role of psychological empowerment and participative safety in predicting innovative behaviour and job crafting as two forms of proactivity. Quantitative data from 295 employees of micro, small, and medium-sized organizations in the information sector were collected with a cross-sectional questionnaire. For hypotheses testing, structural equation modelling was employed. The results of the study showed that work-related reflection and psychological empowerment were substantially related to innovative behaviour and job crafting while participative safety only played a minor role. These findings imply that jobs need to contain empowering and sufficiently complex work tasks that require reflection and provide occasions for reflective interactions to enable employees to create efficient routines and adapt to changes at work. Furthermore, experiences of empowerment need to be rooted in social interactions at work. Likewise, the value of reflection will only unfold if employees and supervisors regularly engage in reflection.     

A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees

Extant research tends to view firm level offshoring strategies and micro level motivational drivers as self-contained units of analysis. By contrast, this paper draws on an inductive study of two global service firms to demonstrate how the implementation and success of an advanced task offshoring strategy depends on certain systemic interdependencies between (a) the strategy, (b) onshore employees’ motivation to transfer advanced tasks and (c) offshore employees’ motivation to spend effort on their tasks and stay with the firm. We analyse how these three elements interact and produce feedback loops to create an ‘offshoring system’. Extrapolating from our findings, we propose how the offshoring system is likely to develop within the external constraints set by the attainable expertise of offshore employees and by client demands.     

Corporate Image: Employee Reactions and Implications for Managing Corporate Social Performance

Corporate image is a function of organizational signals which determine the perceptions of various stakeholders regarding the actions of an organization. Because of its relationship to the actions of an organization, image has been studied as an indicator of the social performance of the organization. Recent research has determined that social performance has direct effects on the behaviors and attitudes of the organization's employees. To better understand these effects, this study develops and empirically tests a model which links corporate leaders' actions, employees' perceptions of corporate image, and the employees' level of association with the organization. The effects of managing the social environment of an organization on its employees' perceptions of image, attitudes, and intended behaviors are discussed.     

一蹶不振或再次出发？领导拒谏对员工行为动机的影响研究

员工谏言被拒绝是现实中常见的一种现象,领导拒绝谏言、选择沉默或没有给与回应都可以被认为是一种社会排斥行为。社会排斥相关理论能够为我们理解领导拒绝谏言后的员工行为动机提供一个好的理论依据。Williams在大量实验基础上提出的需要威胁时间模型是社会排斥研究中较成熟且适用广泛的理论模型。本研究将拒谏作为独立的排斥事件,在需要威胁时间模型下构建了领导拒谏影响员工行为动机的理论模型,探讨了在拒谏事件发生后,动态时间变化过程中,因拒谏这一排斥行为造成的消极情绪和需要威胁在不同个人特质和情境因素下如何影响员工的行为动机。通过厘清影响员工行为动机的相关因素和行为结果,丰富了谏言反应的相关研究,为组织获取长效、持续的员工谏言提供现实参考。     

Computer users’ ergonomics and quality of life – evidence from a developing country

This study is aimed at investigating the quality of workplace ergonomics at various Pakistani organizations and quality of life of computer users working in these organizations. Two hundred and thirty-five computer users (only those employees who have to do most of their job tasks on computer or laptop, and at their office) responded by filling the questionnaire covering questions on workplace ergonomics and quality of life. Findings of the study revealed the ergonomics at those organizations was poor and unfavourable. The quality of life (both physical and mental health of the employees) of respondents was poor for employees who had unfavourable ergonomic environment. The findings thus highlight an important issue prevalent at Pakistani work settings.     

Knowledge,Human Resources and Social Practice: The Knowledge-Intensive Business Service Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System

The knowledge base of firms is intrinsically linked to the knowledge of their employees. This is particularly the case in knowledge-intensive business services, where the production of services is almost entirely dependent on the ability of the firm to make use of the knowledge of the employees. Applying a distributed knowledge system view of the firm helps us understand that how knowledge is created is more important than what knowledge the firm and its employees have. This article presents findings from a case study of a large Danish knowledge-intensive business service firm. It turns out that knowledge not only resides in the minds of individual employees but also that it is constructed in the social interaction between members of teams.     

Helping workers understand and follow social media policies

While social media can have significant benefits for organizations, the social media presences and postings of employees can be problematic for organizations. This is especially true when employees have connections to co-workers and managers. Workers posting content deemed inappropriate or detrimental to the organization has led to a significant number of workers being fired for their social media behavior. To avoid such situations, organizations should create social media policies to guide employee content. Organizational implementation of social media policy is on the rise, but serious questions remain as to how to make it effective. One crucial question is how well employees know and understand their employer's policy. In this article, we discuss how to communicate social media policies to workers and help their understanding. To inform our recommendations, we draw on exploratory data from a sample of young adult workers regarding their knowledge of their own company's social media policies.     

Satisfying Individual Desires or Moral Standards? Preferential Treatment and Group Members’ Self-Worth, Affect, and Behavior

We investigate how social comparison processes in leader treatment quality impact group members’ self-worth, affect, and behavior. Evidences from the field and the laboratory suggest that employees who are treated kinder and more considerate than their fellow group members experience more self-worth and positive affect. Moreover, the greater positive self-implications of preferentially treated group members motivate them more strongly to comply with norms and to engage in tasks that benefit the group. These findings suggest that leaders face an ethical trade-off between satisfying the moral standard of treating everybody equally well and satisfying individual group members’ desire to be treated better than others.     

Feeling Good by Doing Good: Employee CSR-Induced Attributions, Job Satisfaction, and the Role of Charismatic Leadership

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining momentum in academic and managerial circles. However, prior work in the area has paid little attention to how CSR initiatives should be implemented inside the organization. Against this backdrop, this study examines the impact of CSR initiatives on an important stakeholder group—employees. We build and test a comprehensive multilevel framework that focuses on whether employees derive job satisfaction from CSR programs. The proposed model predicts that a manager’s charismatic leadership influences employees’ interpretations about the motives underlying their companies’ engagement in CSR initiatives (intrinsic and extrinsic CSR-induced attributions) which, in turn, influence employee job satisfaction. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 47 organizational units comprising 438 employees from three world-leading manufacturing organizations shows that when employees think that their manager possesses charismatic leadership qualities, they tend to attribute the organization’s motives for engaging in CSR activities to intrinsic values, which, in turn, are positively associated with job satisfaction. Also, the extent to which managers are perceived as charismatic leaders relates positively to job satisfaction. Interestingly, CSR-induced extrinsic attributions are neither explained by charismatic leadership nor do they predict job satisfaction. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.     

Does one model fit all? Exploring factors influencing the use of blogs,social networks,and wikis in the enterprise

Enterprise social media (ESM) have become increasingly widespread, but many intranet communities barely survive, miss their initially planned targets, or are even terminated. Research on technology acceptance can be a useful approach to improve adoption rates, but more empirical research needs to be conducted to examine factors driving the adoption of enterprise social media. To address this gap, we develop a model of individual ESM adoption, including technological and individual factors based on findings from collaboration and knowledge-sharing research. Because different ESM tools, such as blogs, social networks, and wikis, can be employed for fundamentally different uses, we explain differences between individual adoptions of the three technologies by identifying their uses and gratifications from the perspective of employees. The model is tested in three parallel studies, one for blogs, social networks, and wikis each, among employees of an international technology company in the pre-implementation phase. We find substantial differences between the factors influencing the intention to adopt the three applications. This provides the basis to employ the applications in a more effective way by considering organizational and employee needs.     

A comparative analysis of ethical beliefs: A four country study

This study examines the extent to which business students from Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan react differently to ethical dilemmas involving employees, supervisors, customers, suppliers, and business rivals. The empirical results show that the national origin of the students does have an impact on their reactions to particular ethical dilemmas. In addition, the results indicate that controlling for the problem of social desirability response bias is important to ensure the validity of the empirical findings.