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Investigating the Impacts of Organizational Factors on Employees’ Unethical Behavior Within Organization in the Context of Chinese Firms

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Abstract

Unethical behavior is under-examined in the workplace. To date, few studies have attempted to explore the antecedents of an employee’s ethical decisions, particularly with respect to unethical behavior and its effects. To capture an employee’s psychological perception of unethical behavior in the workplace, this paper integrates organizational factors (codes of conduct, likelihood of detection, and performance pressure) into the Theory of Reasoned Action. By conducting an empirical study in a Chinese firm, we found that codes of conduct and performance pressure have a significant influence on an employee’s attitude toward and social beliefs about unethical behavior. We also demonstrated that employees’ unethical behaviors affect the firm performance of an entrepreneurial venture. The insights gleaned from the findings on this Chinese company have a number of important implications for both research and practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness, School of Management, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Xiaolin Lin

  2. School of Business Administration, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO, USA

    Paul F. Clay

  3. Newcastle University Business School, 5 Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4SE, UK

    Nick Hajli

  4. Carson College of Business, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

    Majid Dadgar

Authors
  1. Xiaolin Lin
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  2. Paul F. Clay
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  3. Nick Hajli
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  4. Majid Dadgar
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Correspondence to Xiaolin Lin.

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Table 5 Correlation among scales
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Lin, X., Clay, P.F., Hajli, N. et al. Investigating the Impacts of Organizational Factors on Employees’ Unethical Behavior Within Organization in the Context of Chinese Firms. J Bus Ethics 150, 779–791 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3209-4

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