Abstract
Although several studies have examined the antecedents of employee ethical voice, how it spreads between colleagues is still being determined. We suggest that the contagion of ethical voice among peers depends on employees’ attributions of coworker ethical voice and their perceptions of organizational politics, which in turn impacts on employees’ moral awareness. We used three waves of lagging survey data from 297 employees in China to test our hypotheses. The results indicate that under a high perception of organizational politics, coworker ethical voice is positively associated with external attribution. Under a low perception of organizational politics, coworker ethical voice is positively associated with employee internal attribution. Rather than external attribution, internal attribution is positively related to moral awareness, which is positively associated with employees’ subsequent ethical voice. This paper aims to extend the current understanding of the contagion of ethical voice among peers and provide relevant insights for organizations to encourage employees to express their ethical voice better.
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The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (72071049) and Philosophy & Social Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (GD23XGL021;GD23XGL024).
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Zhao, N., He, B. & Sun, X. The contagion of ethical voice among peers: an attribution perspective. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05958-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05958-x