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The pervasive issue of employee exploitation has surfaced as a salient ethical quandary within the context of modern-day workplaces, thereby demanding expeditious and imperative deliberation and redressal. This research endeavor aims to meticulously investigate the ramifications of employee exploitation on the proclivity to partake in the act of cutting corners within the workplace. This analysis encompasses the sequential mediating variables of negative emotions, namely resentment, anger, and frustration, as well as moral disengagement.

A purposive sampling technique and self-administered questionnaires were utilized in this study of 132 SME sector personnel. The current study is time-lagged in nature and uses the Amos software, the data were analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, as well as structural equation modeling.

According to the results, employee exploitation has a strong positive impact on cutting corners. This effect is mediated progressively by negative emotions (resentment, anguish, frustration), as well as moral disengagement. According to the findings, organizations should prioritize addressing employee exploitation to build a healthy work environment that promotes employee well-being and encourages employee voice.

This study’s novelty comes from its analysis of the sequential mediation of negative emotions, as well as moral disengagement, in the relationship between employee exploitation and cutting corners. The study’s findings add to the body of literature concerning management development, conflict handling, and employees’ attitudes and behaviors by offering a thorough grasp of the detrimental effects of employee exploitation on cutting corners as well as useful recommendations for businesses looking to promote productive workplaces.

Based on the moral licensing theory, this study aims to reveal the mechanism of self-sacrificial leadership inducing abusive supervision from two paths of leader moral credit and leader moral credential. At the same time, it also discusses the moderating effect of leader behavioral integrity on the two paths.

In this study, 434 employees and their direct leaders from six Chinese companies were investigated in a paired survey at three time points, and the empirical data was analyzed using Mplus 7.4 software.

Self-sacrificial leadership has a positive effect on leader abusive supervision through the mediating role of leader moral credit and leader moral credential. In addition, this study also finds that leader behavioral integrity is the “gate” for self-sacrificial leadership to promote abusive supervision, and the leader behavioral integrity has a moderating effect on the process of self-sacrificial leadership influencing on leader moral credit and leader moral credential.

This study explores the evolution of self-sacrificial leadership from “good” to “bad” from the perspective of moral licensing and broadens the research on the mechanism and boundary conditions of self-sacrificial leadership. At the same time, it also provides important reference value for preventing the negative effects of self-sacrificial leadership in organizations.

This paper considers the importance of prohibitive voice in organizations' health. This study aims to explore the role of ethical leadership, reflective moral attentiveness and leader identification.

Two waves of data collection were conducted, including 534 responses in T1 and 242 in T2. This research evaluated hypotheses using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling approach with Smart PLS 3.2.9.

Ethical leadership has a direct positive effect on employees' prohibitive voice. Furthermore, reflective moral attentiveness mediates the associations between ethical leadership and prohibitive voice. Finally, leader identification moderates only the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' moral behavior (prohibitive voice), not moral cognition (reflective moral attentiveness).

This paper provided insight into how and when ethical leaders could promote prohibitive voice behavior. Specifically, the authors explored the mediating role of reflective moral attentiveness and the moderating role of leader identification.

Drawing from the Moral Disengagement theory and the Social Exchange Theory, the present study posits to examine the influence of personality, that is Machiavellianism on organizational deviance in the service industry. Furthermore, the role of moral disengagement as a mediator accentuating the organizational deviance of service employees was examined. Also, the role of Servant Leadership as a moderator on the mediated relationship between Machiavellianism and Organizational Deviance via Moral Disengagement is investigated.

The data was collected from 269 employees working in hotels in northern India using the snowball technique. SPSS 22 and AMOS 22 were the statistical tools utilized to test the hypothesized relationships.

Machiavellianism was positively related to Organizational Deviance. Findings support the fact that Moral disengagement is a mediator in the relationship between Machiavellianism and Organizational Deviance. Service Leadership moderated the mediated relationship between Machiavellianism and Organizational deviance via Moral disengagement such that the relationship was found to be weaker when Service Leadership was high.

Due to its emphasis on interpersonal interaction and intangible services, the hotel industry differs from other sectors of the economy. Employees contact directly with clients and are responsible for meeting their demands. As a result of these frequent interactions, controlling employee deviation is essential in the services industry. The study holds significant and notable implications from the organizational or managerial perspective.

The present study distinctively contributes by bringing the effect of personality on deviant behaviors in the hotel industry which is unmapped, besides examining the role of moral disengagement as the mediator and servant leadership as a moderator mitigating organizational deviance and morally disengaged workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to verify and extend the application of the policy acceptance model (PAM) in the field of green behavior. Under the PAM framework, the authors develop and empirically examine on how employee perception of corporate green policy (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) increases the acceptance of corporate green policy, which further leads to two types of employee green behavior. The authors also test the moderating roles of moral reflectiveness and performance orientation on these relationships.

The authors collected complete survey data from 223 work professionals in this study. Multiple regression method was used to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that there were significant positive impacts of two types of employee perceptions of corporate green policy (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) on their attitudes toward corporate green policy. Second, this study reported positive relationships between employees’ attitudes toward corporate green policy and their two types of green behavior. Finally, supplemental analyses supported moderated mediation models, that is, moral reflectiveness and performance orientation, respectively, and moderated indirect effects of employee perceptions on green behaviors through attitude toward corporate green policy.

The data came from a narrow demographic population, which restricts the generalizability of the findings and also raises questions about the specificity of green behaviors manifest in different industries. Besides, this study used cross-sectional, self-reported data, which limits our ability to draw causal conclusions.

Companies can shape employee perceptions regarding the usefulness and ease of corporate green policy to induce and consolidate employees’ task-related and proactive green behaviors.

This research will help companies to pay more attention to employees’ reflections and attitudes toward green policies, thus effectively promoting employees’ green behavior in the workplace. These actions will further promote the green development of the economy and society.

The authors extend the PAM framework to the area of green behavior. The PAM is applied to a more micro level of corporate green policy. Further, this paper points out that employees’ instrumental value (performance orientation) and moral trait (moral reflectiveness) moderate the impact of employees’ policy perceptions on their green behaviors.

The deviant behavior (DB) of construction workers has always been a troubling event in project management. Although scholars continue to search for the main causes of this behavior to curb it at the source, the authors know less about the role and contribution of the team. This study aims to uncover the mechanisms and conditions under which collective moral judgment focus on self (CMJS) effectively enhances DB.

Adopting Chinese construction enterprises as samples, a hierarchical linear model (HLM) is used to test the results of the hypothesis. Moderated mediating effects are used to analyze the potential mechanisms and boundary conditions of DB.

The results of the HLM analysis show that CMJS could directly and significantly induce DB, and moral disengagement (MD) plays a mediator role in this association. In addition, the positive relationship between MD and DB is stronger when performance-avoidance goal orientation (PaGO) or overqualification (Overq) is higher.

The conditions and mechanisms that influence DB are not unique. Future study could examine the explanatory and weighting mechanisms of DB from other perspectives or to construct a framework and summarize the factors that may influence DB.

This study provides a rich theoretical basis for the prevention and correction of construction workers' DB in Chinese construction firms from the perspective of CMJS. In addition, objective moral judgments contribute to guiding employees' moral cognitive processes and positive work.

This study extends existing research on DB and advances the practical outcomes of construction project governance. It not only illustrates that CMJS has a direct impact on DB but also clarifies the mechanisms and conditions that predispose to the generation of DB, filling the research gap on construction workers' DB from cross-level mechanisms and also enriching the theoretical system for preventing this behavior.

Despite its prevalence and serious negative impact on consumer behavior, marketing strategies and social welfare, little is known about how to effectively curb moral licensing. Drawing on research in warm-glow giving and virtue signaling, this paper aims to propose that social sharing can help alleviate the moral licensing effect; and this effect is mediated by moral self-regard and moderated by temporal distance.

Two experimental studies were conducted in a laboratory setting using large samples. In particular, Study 1 was designed to test the proposed main and mediation effects, and Study 2 was designed to further examine the proposed moderation effect.

Study 1 demonstrates after having shared a prior moral behavior on social media, people are more likely to engage in another moral act subsequently. This is because that sharing a prior moral behavior on social media leads to a drop in moral self-regard, which, in turn, boosts a subsequent moral intention. Study 2 further shows that after having shared a prior moral behavior on social media, when making a decision for the present, people are more likely to engage in a subsequent good deed; however, this effect is diminished when people are making such a decision for the future.

This work provides important implications for marketing managers and policymakers. In particular, this research suggests that social sharing can be an effective tool to encourage individuals’ consistent moral behavior so as to promote individual and collective well-being. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that temporal distance and social sharing can interact to reduce the moral licensing effect. In practice, this research contributes to the development of effective marketing strategies, particularly for those companies that aim to integrate sustainability into their business practices.

In contrast to previous research examining the cognitive approach to curbing moral licensing, this research explores a new, powerful behavioral approach to alleviating the moral licensing effect. Furthermore, this research consolidates previous findings on the relationship between identity signaling and self-regard, increases the scope of identity signaling research and offers a bridge between research on identity signaling and research on moral licensing. Finally, this research adds to understanding of moral licensing by showing that the moral licensing effect may vary depending on contextual factors and, therefore, is more malleable than previously thought, which opens up future research opportunities to explore when and how the moral licensing effect can be alleviated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how psychological antecedents (i.e. consumer mindsets) and individual difference characteristics (i.e. moral identity) affect the intention to purchase Fair Trade products based on the triadic reciprocal causation model in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986). The primary factors that influence ethical consumption decisions in ethnic Chinese societies were explored by integrating the unique cultural environment of the Chinese.

The study effective sample comprised university students and professors. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses and indirect effects. Results showed that moral identity internalization had a mediating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.

A high moral identity symbolization had a moderating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products. This demonstrated that the two dimensions of moral identity, internalization and symbolization, play different roles and have different functions in regards to the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.

Future studies are urged to examine this issue at a cultural level by performing a cross-cultural comparison and to integrate consumer heterogeneity for a deeper examination of the interaction between demographic factors and psychological traits on consumer behaviours regarding Fair Trade products.

This study indicates that moral identity internalization is the primary factor that influences ethical consumption decisions in Chinese societies. In terms of the moderating effect of moral identity symbolization, results showed that the higher an individual’s moral identity symbolization, the stronger the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products is. These results can serve as a reference for marketing communications and market segmentation policies in the business world.

This study aims to explore how the three dimensions of karma – karmic duty orientation, indifference to rewards and equanimity – influence empathy and moral obligation, with implications for social economics.

The research was conducted on a valid sample of 401 university students in Vietnam, using hierarchical regression to test formulated hypotheses.

The analysis reveals that karmic duty orientation and indifference to rewards significantly enhance empathy and moral obligation, indicating that individuals with a strong sense of moral duty and intrinsic motivation are more likely to engage in ethical and pro-social behaviors. Equanimity was not found to impact empathy or moral obligation significantly.

Organizations and policymakers should focus on cultivating moral duties, intrinsic motivations and resilience in ethical behavior to promote social responsibility and sustainability and ensure long-term social and economic stability.

This study contributes to social economics by integrating ethical dimensions of karma into the analysis of moral behavior, offering a fresh perspective that challenges traditional economic models centered on self-interest. The research provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how moral principles influence economic decisions and social outcomes.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2023-0571

This study seeks to apply a dual-processing model to understand how ethical leadership prohibits employee unethical behavior through both employee deontic justice and distributive justice.

A survey research was conducted with 62 supervisors and 244 subordinates of 17 firms collected at 2 time points separated by approximately 3 weeks in People's Republic of China.

A multilevel modeling analysis was used to test the dual-processing model. The results showed that both employee deontic justice (moral intuition process) and distributive justice (deliberate reasoning process) significantly mediate the negative relationship between ethical leadership and employee unethical behavior.

As traditional ethics-training approaches mainly focus on developing the deliberate decision-making process driven by distributive justice, the authors' dual-processing model suggests that moral intuition led by deontic justice is equally important and could significantly inhibit employee unethical behavior. Applying the proposed dual-processing model in the ethics training can enhance the effectiveness of employee moral training.

Previous studies have studied the deliberate reasoning process and moral intuition on employee unethical behavior independently. This study contributes to the current literature by a comprehensive dual-processing model which demonstrates equal impact of employee deontic justice and distributive justice led by ethical leadership on the inhibition of employee unethical behavior.