Home
Resource
The business amorality belief and workplace unethical behavior
PDF
PDF format is widely accepted and good for printing.
Plug-in required
PDF-1(1.66 MB)
Citation & Export
View Usage Statistics
Staff View

Citation & Export
Hide

Simple citation

Zhang, Wen. The business amorality belief and workplace unethical behavior. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3PZ5D7Z

Export

Click here for information about Citation Management Tools at Rutgers.

Statistics
Hide

Description

TitleThe business amorality belief and workplace unethical behavior
NameZhang, Wen (author); Chen, Chao C (chair); Warren, Danielle (internal member); Sheldon, Oliver (internal member); Zhang, Kai (outside member); Rutgers University; Graduate School - Newark
Date Created2018
Other Date2018-05 (degree)
SubjectManagement, Business ethics
Extent1 online resource (ix, 97 p. : ill.)
DescriptionResearch on amorality draws from various disciplines. However, conceptions of amorality in the literature are diverse and ambiguous. My dissertation delves into the concept of amorality by introducing an unequivocal definition of the business amorality belief (BAB). BAB is defined as the extent to which individuals believe that morality is irrelevant and inapplicable in the business world. Drawing on social cognitive theory (SCT), my dissertation seeks to understand the effect of BAB on two broad categories of workplace unethical behavior: unethical pro-self behavior (UPSB) and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPOB). I hypothesize that employees’ BAB is positively related their UPSB and UPOB. I further hypothesize that a leader’s BAB and team level unethical behaviors (UPSB and UPOB) each further strengthens the above relationships. Three studies have been conducted to develop and validate the BAB scale and test the hypotheses with data collected from multiple samples from a variety of universities and companies in China. In Study 1, I developed a valid and reliable measure of individuals’ BAB using undergraduate student and part-time MBA student samples. A series of tests demonstrated sufficient evidence of the reliability, discriminant validity, and convergent validity of the newly developed measure. In Study 2, with time-lagged data collected from part-time MBA students, I examined the nomological network of BAB and found that BAB had an incremental effect on UPSB and UPOB than other related variables in workplace unethical behavior research. In Study 3, I employed hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypotheses with time-lagged data collected from Chinese companies in different industries including technology, pharmaceuticals, electric maintenance, telecommunications, and business consulting. The results showed that employees’ BAB was positively related to both UPSB and UPOB, replicating the findings in Study 2. Furthermore, leaders’ BAB strengthens the effect of employees’ BAB on UPOB but not UPSB. Lastly, team level unethical behavior strengthens the effect of employees’ BAB UPSB but not UPOB. Theoretical contributions, managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Wen Zhang
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3PZ5D7Z
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
Version 8.5.5
Rutgers University Libraries - Copyright ©2024