The duplicitous effect of organizational identification: applying social identity theory to identify joint relations with workplace social courage and unethical pro-organizational behaviors

ABSTRACT

The value of courage has been discussed for over two millennia; however, courage remains understudied in empirical research relative to its potential workplace influence. The current article applies social identity theory (SIT) to hypothesize that antecedents of social courage do not only relate to overtly beneficial outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that organizational identification and moral identity not only relate to social courage, but also to unethical pro-organizational behaviors. We also use SIT to hypothesize that moral identity moderates these relations. Our study supports each of these proposals, with the exception of the moderating influence of moral identity on the relation of organizational identification and workplace social courage. The results demonstrate that SIT is a viable lens to understand courage, broadening the theoretical scope surrounding the construct. We also demonstrate that some antecedents of courage may produce duplicitous effects, and practitioners should not assume that courage’s antecedents are always beneficial.

KEYWORDS:

• Social identity theory (SIT)
• organizational identification
• moral identity
• workplace social courage
• unethical pro-organizational behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Informed consent

Informed consent from participants was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Within the consent form, participants were made aware that a publication may result using their anonymous responses. The wording of this consent form was approved by the University of Alabama Institutional Review Board (IRB), Mobile, Alabama (Board Reference Number: 19-392.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2109199.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2109199.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Approvals for the consent form, questionnaire, and study were obtained from the University of Alabama Institutional Review Board (IRB), Mobile, Alabama (Board Reference Number: 19-392.