To date, scholars have largely drawn on macro finance and accounting models to understand the determinants of effective implementation of enterprise risk management (ERM) in organizations. However, this body of work has largely neglected the role of individuals and teams responsible for implementing ERM systems and the organizational context in which they are nested. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the present research tests a multilevel conceptual model that links the leadership of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO), the culture of the risk management unit, and the emergent properties of the risk management team to ERM effectiveness. Based on survey responses from 449 risk managers and executives, we test our hypotheses on both subjective and objective measures of ERM effectiveness. The results indicate that the CRO's ERM-specific transformational leadership, the consistency of the risk management culture, and the collective performance beliefs (i.e. group potency) of the risk management team have positive direct effects on ERM effectiveness. Mediation analyses show that consistency culture and group potency significantly positively and sequentially mediate the relationship between CRO transformational leadership and ERM effectiveness. Thus, institutions with transformational CROs are more likely to have effective ERM programs because they promote consistent risk management cultures and nurture strong collective performance beliefs in their risk management teams. These insights contribute to the theoretical understanding of ERM and offer practical insight for enhancing its application.

ABSTRACT The non‐rationalist view of morality holds that all employees—including “good” apples—are liable to do bad because they are susceptible to moral biases in everyday situational encounters. In contrast, the rationalist or trait view suggests that employees with strong moral character should be resilient against moral biases across situations and over time. Rather than treating these perspectives as competing explanations, we ask a more nuanced question: In which situational encounters and for whom does moral character shape susceptibility to daily moral biases at work? Drawing on research on moral exemplarity, we argue that “good” exists along a continuum from intermediate to exceptional moral character, with only the exceptional consistently exhibiting moral resilience. Integrating moral disengagement theory with the Situational Eight DIAMONDS model, we identify and test a comprehensive set of episodic work situations that may trigger daily within‐person fluctuations in state moral disengagement. Across two pilot studies, work situations characterized by Deception , Adversity / Negativity , and unexpectedly, Mating , positively predicted same‐day moral disengagement. In a 3‐week diary study, daily encounters of these situations triggered daily moral disengagement, which subsequently increased daily instrumental OCBs, reduced genuine OCBs, and heightened incivility among employees low to intermediate (but not exceptional) on trait Honesty–Humility. We also find that exceptional‐character employees exhibited low moral amplitude or volatility in moral disengagement over time. Our discussion highlights the necessity of considering both within‐person fluctuations and between‐person differences in resilience against moral biases at work.

Moral disengagement (MD) describes a set of eight cognitive tactics that employees routinely adopt to justify wrongdoing. A common practice in the field is to assess moral disengagement as a singular construct, which is then used to predict a host of (mostly) negative work behaviors. In the present research, we revisit the factor structure of moral disengagement to evaluate whether specific tactics capture unique and meaningful variance. If so, we test whether they offer incremental insights into understanding a critical workplace issue—employees’ attitudes towards and support of an organization’s triple bottom line (TBL: People, Planet, and Profit) strategic focus. First, we accumulate reliable measures for each tactic. Next, across three studies, we find strong support for a bifactor structure with a “global” MD factor and eight “specific” factors. In Study 2, we demonstrate that, beyond global MD, specific tactics predict employees’ attitudes towards People, Planet, and Profit initiatives. In Study 3, we replicate and extend these findings by linking global and specific MD tactics directly and indirectly (through corresponding TBL attitudes) to employees’ behavioral support of online petitions of corporate TBL initiatives. Specifically, controlling for political affiliation and global MD, dehumanization and distortion of consequences negatively predict employee support of corporate People (e.g., diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives) and Planet initiatives. In contrast, euphemistic labeling positively predicts support for corporate Profit-focused initiatives. Overall, our findings illustrate that moral disengagement can be conceptualized as a global construct or eight distinct tactics, with the latter showing potential for understanding novel workplace phenomena.

In recent years, the term gaslighting has become popular for describing deliberate attempts to undermine another person’s reality by making them feel “crazy.” Although it has mostly been studied in romantic relationships, recent work suggests that gaslighting occurs in other contexts where power imbalance exists. The current research aims to a) conceptualize gaslighting within the leader-employee relationship, b) differentiate between leaders’ use of gaslighting tactics and employees’ psychological experience of being gaslighted, c) develop and validate measures to captures these two constructs, and d) develop and test a comprehensive nomological network around them. First, we adapted and developed items based on a review of the broader gaslighting literature. Next, we tested the psychometric properties of our measures in two working adult samples (N = 314 and N = 398) and provide initial evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Finally, we examine the proposed nomological network in a time-lagged study of 632 employees and 194 supervisors. The results show that employee experienced gaslighting state mediates the adverse effect of leader gaslighting tactics on self-focused (e.g., organizational-based self-esteem), performance-focused (e.g., task performance), supervisor-focused (e.g., supervisor-directed impression management), and coworker-focused (e.g., ostracism by coworkers) outcomes. Many of these indirect effects were stronger when the employee reported higher (versus lower) LMX relationship quality with the leader. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

SummaryAccording to Bandura, moral disengagement facilitates misconduct by minimizing feelings of guilt that normally arise when one contemplates wrongdoing. While trait moral disengagement has been negatively associated with anticipatory guilt, scholars have yet to fully consider its impact on guilt post‐misconduct. In this paper, we examine the indirect effects of trait moral disengagement on post‐misconduct guilt, and downstream effects on employees' mental health and performance. Lastly, we explore the moderating role of post‐misconductstatemoral disengagement in shaping the effects of trait moral disengagement. Across three studies, we find that trait moral disengagement ispositivelylinked to guilt following interpersonal deviance, unethical work behavior, and objective cheating behavior. Further, trait moral disengagement is indirectly, positively linked to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to executive function (specifically, the capacity to inhibit distraction during tasks). In a fourth study, we find that trait moral disengagement is positively associated with guilt and subsequent emotional exhaustion when individuals employ little to no state moral disengagement immediately post‐misconduct. In contrast, trait moral disengagement is negatively linked to guilt and emotional exhaustion when individuals employ state moral disengagement post‐misconduct. We discuss the implications of these findings for advancing moral disengagement theory and research.

Summary Research suggests that CSR is increasingly becoming an ambiguous signal of ethical information for external stakeholders. This is because a variety of firms—including those that are morally responsible and those that have been implicated in corporate scandals—routinely adopt CSR policies and invest in CSR initiatives. Not surprisingly, this trend has contributed to rising public skepticism of CSR. In the current research, we examine the unique role of CEO ethical leadership (i.e., relative to CSR) as an alternate source of substantive and rhetorical ethical signals for an important stakeholder group: job seekers. Integrating signaling theory, and the elaboration likelihood model, we argue that CEO ethical leadership substantively signals how fairly an organization treats its employees and its commitment to social and environmental responsibility. We further propose that ethical CEOs serve as a source of rhetorical signal that triggers moral elevation in job seekers. Using a policy capturing methodology in Study 1, we find that real job seekers place significantly greater weight on CEO ethical leadership in making job pursuit decisions compared to CSR. CEO ethical leadership also uniquely predicts job pursuit intentions relative to traditional factors such as salary, person‐job fit, and person‐organization fit. In a second, quasi‐experimental field study (Study 2), we find support for the three hypothesized signaling mechanisms through which CEO ethical leadership influences job seekers. In a third, quasi‐experimental field study (Study 3), we find that job seekers with strong (versus weak) moral identities are more likely to weigh the nuanced ethical information signaled by CEO ethical leadership compared to CSR. We discuss the implications of proactively advertising CEO ethical leadership during the recruitment process.

Moral disengagement refers to a set of cognitive tactics people employ to sidestep moral self-regulatory processes that normally prevent wrongdoing. In this study, we present a comprehensive meta-analytic review of the nomological network of moral disengagement at work. First, we test its dispositional and contextual antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences, including ethics (workplace misconduct and organizational citizenship behaviors [OCBs]) and non-ethics outcomes (turnover intentions and task performance). Second, we examine Bandura's postulation that moral disengagement fosters misconduct by diminishing moral cognitions (moral awareness and moral judgment) and anticipatory moral self-condemning emotions (guilt). We also test a contrarian view that moral disengagement is limited in its capacity to effectively curtail moral emotions after wrongdoing. The results show that Honesty-Humility, guilt proneness, moral identity, trait empathy, conscientiousness, idealism, and relativism are key individual antecedents. Further, abusive supervision and perceived organizational politics are strong contextual enablers of moral disengagement, while ethical leadership and organizational justice are relatively weak deterrents. We also found that narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and psychological entitlement are key theoretical correlates, although moral disengagement shows incremental validity over these "dark" traits. Next, moral disengagement was positively associated with workplace misconduct and turnover intentions, and negatively related to OCBs and task performance. Its positive impact on misconduct was mediated by lower moral awareness, moral judgment, and anticipated guilt. Interestingly, however, moral disengagement was positively related to guilt and shame post-misconduct. In sum, we find strong cumulative evidence for the pertinence of moral disengagement in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

SummaryRecent trends in the academic literature indicate growing interest in bottom‐up strategies for addressing workplace misconduct. Scholars argue that leaders may empower employees to speak up and engage in morally courageous behaviors (MCB) when they witness transgressions. In this research, we integrate social cognitive theory and social exchange theory to explain how and when leaders—in their capacities as role models and organizational representatives—promote employee MCB. In Study 1, we find that leader ethical role modeling influences MCB by nurturing employee moral ownership and a sense of obligation to the organization. We show that the path from moral ownership to MCB is stronger for employees with high (versus low) moral efficacy. In Study 2, we find similar results with respect to the roles of safety‐specific moral ownership and felt obligation in explaining how leader safety role modeling influences safety‐related whistleblowing, a specific form of MCB. We also replicate the moderating effect of moral efficacy on the moral ownership—whistleblowing link. However, we find an unexpected negative moderating effect on the felt obligation—whistleblowing link. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding and promoting morally courageous behaviors in the workplace.

SummaryIn this research, we integrate social impact theory (SIT) and social cognitive theory (SCT) to examine how group ethical voice, as a form of social influence, reduces group abusive supervision. Drawing on SIT, we hypothesize that the strength of this relationship is contingent on the group's power, size, and social distance from the group leader (i.e., interaction frequency). Results from data collected over two time periods from 521 employees in 98 work groups (Study 1) reveal that group ethical voice reduces group abusive supervision, controlling for general group voice and group performance. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between group ethical voice and group abusive supervision was strongest when the group is larger, powerful, and interacts frequently with the group leader. These findings are replicated in Study 2, a time‐lagged study of employees across three time periods. Study 2 also shows that the interactive effects of group ethical voice, group power, and social distance (but not group size) on abusive supervision are mediated by leader reflective moral attentiveness. Specifically, in powerful and socially proximal groups, group ethical voice reduces abusive supervision by fostering greater reflective moral attentiveness in group leaders.

When employees experience distressful events such as abusive supervision, they often rely on their workgroup for sense making and social support. However, research also shows that supervisors tend to differentially abuse members of the same group (i.e., abusive supervision differentiation, ASD). We argue that this behavior threatens an employee’s socioemotional bond with and reliance on the workgroup for support. Specifically, ASD drives negative comparisons of “self versus others” that diminish one’s socioemotional relationship with the group as a whole, particularly if one experiences more abuse than others. Drawing on attachment theory, we develop an individual-level conceptual model that links perceptions of ASD to employee outcomes through two forms of unhealthy person-group bonding—group attachment anxiety and group attachment avoidance. The results of two studies show that group attachment anxiety and avoidance uniquely explain the effects of ASD perceptions, over and above group identification. While both attachment patterns mediated the effects of ASD on psychological distress, group attachment avoidance primarily mediated the effects on quit intentions, and group attachment anxiety primarily mediated the effects on interpersonal deviance (Study 2). In addition, Study 2 demonstrates that resentment and envy towards other group members explain why ASD perceptions lead to group attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and subsequent outcomes. Lastly, we find some evidence that the indirect effects of ASD perceptions are more detrimental when one perceives greater (vs. less) personal exposure to abusive supervision. We conclude by discussing the implications of group attachment theory and targeted emotions for understanding ASD.

In the past decade, a number of studies have found a consistent, positive link between moral disengagement (Bandura, 1986) and immoral behaviors in the workplace. According to Bandura, this occurs because moral disengagement minimizes one’s anticipation of moral self- condemnation - feelings of guilt and shame that normally arise when one contemplates wrongdoing. Although research shows that moral disengagement is negatively associated with anticipatory guilt, scholars rarely consider its impact on self-condemning moral emotions after wrongdoing. In this paper, we examine the relationship between moral disengagement and experiences of guilt and shame following three types of immoral work behaviors - interpersonal deviance, (low) interpersonal citizenship behaviors (OCBI), and (low) cooperation. Across two studies using mixed methods, we find that moral disengagers experience guilt and shame following interpersonal deviance, (low) cooperation, and objectively measured cheating, but not (low) OCBI. In a third study, we show that moral disengagers exhibit greater psychological distress, turnover intentions, social loafing, and lower task performance as a result of their guilt and shame. We discuss the implications of these findings with respect to advancing moral disengagement and moral emotions theory in organizational scholarship.

There is growing consensus among behavioral ethics scholars that ethical leadership is a potent solution for addressing unethical and deviant behaviors in the workplace. However, while the evidence to date shows that ethical leadership generally reduces employee misconduct, it is not clear how ethical leaders influence those most likely to engage in misconduct – i.e., dispositionally dishonest employees (or low Honesty-Humility, HH; Ashton & Lee, 2004). Drawing on Brown et al.’s (2005) theory of ethical leadership, we test two distinct theoretical explanations: a) the moral cognitive perspective, which argues that ethical leaders reduce the unethical behaviors of low HH employees by positively shaping their moral cognitions (e.g., moral attentiveness and awareness, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral disengagement) of low HH employees or b) the trait suppression perspective, which argues that ethical leaders simply suppress or constrain low HH employees’ natural expression of unethical behavior through reinforcements. Across four studies investigating five moral cognitions, we found little support for the moral cognitive explanation. In contrast, we find evidence that ethical leaders primarily mitigate low HH employees’ unethical behaviors by influencing their perceptions that deviant behaviors are not tolerated (i.e., suppressed) in the workplace. We discuss the implications of these findings.

In the past few decades, significant research has accumulated on the importance of moral disengagement (Bandura, American Psychologist, 44, 1175–1184, 1989) for understanding why individuals engage in misconduct. The current research extends this work by exploring the implications of moral disengagement at the team level. Specifically, we examine how and under what conditions composing teams with morally disengaging members (i.e., team moral disengagement composition) affects team performance. In a time-lagged study of newly formed teams (N = 94), we show that team moral disengagement composition is positively associated with team-level interpersonal deviance and negatively related to team cooperation and team performance. We further show that team moral disengagement composition adversely affects team performance primarily through (low) team cooperation. However, this negative, indirect effect dissipates in teams that exhibit strong (versus weaker) collective extraversion—an emergent state that captures team sociability norms and behavioral regularities indicative of positive social interaction among team members. We discuss the implications of our findings for moral disengagement theory in team contexts.

While previous research has established that employees who have a more conscientious leader are more likely to perceive that their leader is ethical, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this linkage remain unknown. In order to better understand the relationship between leader conscientiousness and ethical leadership, we examine the potential mediating role of leader moral reflectiveness, as well as the potential moderating role of decision-making autonomy. Drawing from social cognitive theory, results from two samples of workgroup leaders and their immediate reports situated in Africa and Asia show that leader conscientiousness is positively related to leader moral reflectiveness, which in turn, is positively associated with employees’ assessment of ethical leadership. Furthermore, and consistent with our hypothesis, results from the two samples show that leader decision-making autonomy moderates the indirect path from leader conscientiousness to ethical leadership through moral reflectiveness, such that only morally reflective leaders who have high (versus low) decision-making autonomy at work engage in ethical leadership behaviors. In our discussion, we highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest ways in which organizations can better foster ethical leadership.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) functions as a positive signal to stakeholders that a firm is a responsible corporate citizen. However, CSR is increasingly becoming an ambiguous signal of organizational goodwill because many companies engage in CSR purely out of self-interest, rather than genuine altruism. In this paper, we integrate attribution theory with signaling theory to explore how stakeholders react when they receive additional signals that contradict the company's intended positive CSR signal. Specifically, we argue that morally questionable CEO ethics in the media negatively influences stakeholders' CSR motive attributions, which in turn results in increased cynicism that ultimately impacts CSR support intentions and behaviors. We find support for our hypotheses in a quasi-experimental study of stakeholder media exposure to different types of CEOs (morally questionable, ethical, and ethics-unknown). Our findings demonstrate that stakeholders consider CEO ethics an important signal of CSR motives, and will shun the CSR initiatives of morally questionable CEOs.

Organizational research has drawn on social learning theory (Bandura, 1971) to explain how employees learn workplace behaviors, particularly focusing on the influence of supervisors while overlooking the influence of other role models within and outside the workplace. Moreover, a tendency to employ social learning without directly measuring the role modeling process has led to speculation about the explanatory power of social learning theory in some behavioral contexts (e.g., Wo, Ambrose, & Schminke, 2015) and questions about the extent to which supervisors are necessarily the most salient role model for employees (Ogunfowora, 2014). We address these issues by developing a measure of role modeling perceptions and using it to test a model of multiple role modeling effects on employee behavior at work in two distinct behavioral contexts: workplace ethics and safety. We find that the effects of specific role models on employee behavior depend on the behavioral context. Employee ethical conduct at work is influenced by role models from within and outside the organization, whereas employee safety behaviors are influenced only by workplace role models. In addition, our model integrates social learning and social exchange theories to explain how organizational role models uniquely motivate behavior by fostering feelings of obligation to the organization.

SummaryResearch to date has largely been unclear about whether a single perpetrator is sufficient to instigate the well‐documented negative consequences of workplace incivility. In the current research, we examine the extent to which perceived belongingness and embarrassment mediate the relationship between incivility from a single perpetrator and two important outcomes (job insecurity and somatic symptoms), and the extent to which the perpetrator's power moderates these relationships. Across two studies using different methods, we find that incidents of single perpetrator incivility are associated with target feelings of isolation and embarrassment, which in turn relate to targets' perceived job insecurity and somatic symptoms (Studies 1 and 2) both the same day and three days later (Study 2). Moreover, we find that perpetrator power moderates the relationship between incivility and embarrassment, such that targets are more embarrassed when the perpetrator is powerful. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.