The impact of fear of external threats on unethical pro-organizational behavior
- Authors
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Bocheng Zhang
School of Fashion Design and Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University
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Zhe Wang
City Brain Institute, Zhejiang University of City College
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- Keywords:
- fear of external threats, sense of control, unethical pro-organizational behavior, perceived organizational ethical climate, crisis setting, finance personnel
- Abstract
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Within the context of the current global economic crisis, employees generally have a high level of fear that may lead them to use unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) to increase their sense of control. We used self-control theory to explore the mechanisms and boundary conditions of employees’ fear of external threats and how this affects their levels of UPB. We conducted a two-wave survey of 544 finance personnel in China. The results indicated that fear of external threats was positively correlated with UPB and that sense of control mediated this relationship. Perceived ethical climate reinforced the negative relationship between sense of control and UPB, which, in turn, weakened the positive effect of participants’ sense of control, whereas fear of external threats increased the incidence of UPB. Implications are discussed.
- References
- Downloads
- Published
- 2023-05-02
- Issue
- Vol. 51 No. 5 (2023)
- Section
- Articles
- License
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