TY - JOUR TI - The business amorality belief and workplace unethical behavior DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3PZ5D7Z PY - 2018 AB - Research 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. KW - Management KW - Business ethics LA - eng ER -