Samenvatting
The rash of corporate scandals has instigated societal and scientific interest in unethical leader behavior. Moral identity has been put forward as an important factor regulating unethical conduct. However, we posit that the self-regulating function of moral identity may be deactivated by factors that motivate behaviors that are inconsistent with the demands of one’s moral identity. Being an other-condemning emotion, we reasoned that contempt represents an opposing force that weakens the negative association between leaders’ moral identity and unethical behavior. Indeed, we found that contempt diminished the negative association between moral identity and (a) the reported probability of displaying unethical supervisory behaviors (Study 1), and (b) leaders’ display of abusive supervisory behaviors (Study 2 and 3). These findings provide first empirical evidence that the extent to which leaders are guided by their identity based moral compass is contingent on their feelings of contempt.
Originele taal-2 | English |
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Tijdschrift | Academy of Management Proceedings |
Volume | 2013 |
Nummer van het tijdschrift | 1 |
DOI's | |
Status | Published - jan.-2013 |