Performance goal orientation and unethical pro-organizational behavior: a moderated mediation model

Abstract

Existing unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature suggests that it includes two definitional components: committing to achieving beneficial consequences for the organization and violating standards of ethical behavior. Existing research examining individual differences’ effects on UPB has mainly focused on moral traits and largely ignored performance-related ones, such as performance goal orientation. To address this theoretical blind spot, drawing from the general risk-taking perspective, we investigated how and when performance goal orientations shape employee UPB. We first conducted a business simulation study (Study 1) with 86 undergraduate students and found that performance-approach goal orientation had a positive effect on UPB engagement. Next, we sampled 446 employees from 93 teams (Study 2). Results showed that the relationship between performance-approach goal orientation and UPB was mediated by risk taking. Furthermore, performance-avoidance goal orientation was negatively related to risk taking and subsequent UPB for individuals perceive lower levels of UPB injunctive norm induced by higher ethical leadership. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications, and offer several directions for future research.

Keywords:

• Unethical pro-organizational behavior
• performance-approach goal orientation
• performance-avoidance goal orientation
• ethical leadership
• perceived UPB injunctive norm

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical statement

The authors declared that this research was conducted in accordance with ethical standards.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 For more information about the AACSB and its accreditation system, please visit: https://www.aacsb.edu/

2 In the revision process, according to one reviewer’s suggestion, we collected another sample of 70 undergraduate students from the same business school to cross-validate the UPB items. We asked them to respond whether they believe those descriptive items regarding undergraduate programs development are contradictory to the university reality. Results showed that all participants identified the five bolded items in the Appendix as contradictory to the university reality, suggesting that the five items can capture actual UPB.

3 In a supplemental analysis, we reran our analysis removing all the control variables, and our results stayed robust. Interested readers can contact the first author for more detailed results.

Additional information

Funding

Author Shenjiang Mo has received research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71772158 and 72172139).