The Role of Motivators in Employees' Knowledgeably Unethical Behavior

Qin Liping*, Rozaini Rosli

Lincoln University College, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor D. E., Malaysia

*Corresponding Author’s Email: qinliping2114@outlook.com

Abstract

The junction of behavioral ethics with organizational leadership is examined in this study. Employing a sample of 458 full-time employed people, we examined the psychological health of followers in numerous organizations and different industries. Through two-stage data collection using waves, we examine the uniqueness of important leadership concepts that have been proposed in the literature as being connected to behavioral ethics. We further investigated if and how these Using structural equation modeling, we can identify behaviors that are related to both burnout and work engagement. A description of moderated mediation. Findings imply that both active and passive ethical leadership Aggressive management and immoral leadership are, in fact, two different types of leadership behavior. Nevertheless, only moral leadership conduct forecasts follower work and burnout engagement. Additionally, depending on the results, different psychological mechanisms are used by ethical leadership to have various effects. This means that ethical leadership affects follower work engagement through the social exchange mediator LMX, whereas its effect on follower burnout is communicated through both LMX and relational identification with the immediate supervisor.

Both results were significantly influenced by perceived organizational support and organizational identification, but these factors did not interact with the mediating mechanisms to affect employee behavior and well-being. This shows that these organizational structures are not a replacement for moral leadership. Discussions include theoretical and practical consequences, future research objectives, and study limits.

Keywords: Behavioral Ethics, Immoral Leadership, Organizational Support, Employee Behavior

Introduction

There has been a lot of focus on the prevalence of employee malfeasance and behavioral deviation in workplace environments, as well as any potential negative impacts. Many words have been used to describe this kind of behavior, such as Rose's 'disruptive behavior', Fox and Mr. Spector, ‘anti- social behavior’, Nelson et al., Robinson & Bowman, Jackson & Bennett, Robinson & Bennett, ‘corporate disobedience’. Anything from not putting up any effort to disobeying leaders or misusing narcotics at work falls under this category of (mis)behavior (Gard, Dotterer & Hyde, 2019; Ashena et al. 2019). Based on whether they're addressed to certain individuals or organizations, they have been divided into interpersonal and organizational types as well as the severity of the offense, which ranges from trivial (exhibiting favoritism) to major (Norawati et al. 2022). According to the context in which they take place, they have also been categorized into extra- and intra-organizational behaviors, as well as deviations in productivity, wealth, or private hostility, depending on the target. There is a distinction between harmful aberrant behavior and immoral behavior, according to certain academics. The former is described as a series of deliberate actions carried out. While unethical behavior centers on breaking social norms, deviant behavior centers on transgressing organizational norms. This distinction, however, is not always obvious. Loyalty to the organization might encourage actions that are unethical but not abnormal, such as using false advertising tactics or disposing of poisonous trash in a river. Alternatively, depending on the viewpoint, disregarding such commands, or raising the issue with them can be considered ethical but deviant (social or organizational). The motivation behind the conduct, the violation of organizational norms or regulations, and the potential harm done to the organization and/or its members are the factors used to designate a specific behavior as deviant. spreading misinformation, using organizations. It is contended that while unethical behavior centers on breaking social norms, deviant behavior centers on transgressing organizational standards. However, this distinction is not always obvious. Loyalty to the organization might encourage actions that are unethical but not out of the ordinary. Examples include using misleading advertising tactics or disposing of poisonous garbage in a river (Papamichael et al. 2022). In contrast, depending on the perspective, disregarding such directives or raising the issue with them might be seen as morally righteous but deviant (social or organizational). The motivation behind the conduct, the violation of organizational norms or regulations, and the potential harm done to the organization and/or its members are the three factors used to designate a specific behavior as deviant. Spreading false information and abusing organizations.

Literature Review

The authors looked through the following databases for this review of the literature: Wikipedia, Springer Link, Green Managed, Fulfill this responsibility, or Scientific databases. They chose a date and used the words "integrity," "unethical," and "ethical" to meet the HRD 10-year inclusion requirement. We didn't use traditional sources of information that are needed to back up a claim, though. Using the method, the author found articles. First, they looked at its heading, or the 50 articles left after removing those that weren't relevant to their interests. They read the remaining publications' abstracts, and once more, they rejected those that weren't supplying the ultimate collection items provided by all of them that were pertinent.

Dishonest Actions: Many moral points of view, like virtues, egocentrism, morality, theory, situationism, hedonism, or realism, are used to evaluate morality, especially from the point of view of workers. Studying immoral conduct is essential for developing a thorough knowledge of morality and avoiding potential infractions.

Unethical behavior entails activities that are ethically repugnant to the greater community and involves breaking rules, conventions, and morals (Shah et al. 2022). Employee misconduct, rule- breaking, causing criminal harm, and noncompliance, such as corruption in the workplace, are all examples of unethical behavior in the workplace. It is considered a threat to interpersonal relationships and the organization, resulting in both financial and non-financial harm and having a negative impact on reputation, insolvency, and other consequences.

Several factors, such as attitude toward the situation, personal principles, the expert setting, the liability setting, and the commercial setting, all have an impact on unethical behavior. Also, many researchers have found that money is one of the main reasons why people do unethical things. For example, workers may think about the possible gains and losses and the costs and benefits of doing unethical things like lying, stealing, or cheating. Self-interest is the driving force behind immoral activity. However, it is reported that self-deception is the cause of unethical behavior. Four supportive factors of self-deception: "Language euphemisms; the precipice of bad choices; mistakes in ongoing causality; and limitations brought on by self-image representations. However, Quad, Green Baum, Maritz, Hil, and the climate and culture of a business have an impact on whether employees perform ethically or unethically. Either ethical culture or climate impact unethical behavior. The ethical climate may affect managers' unethical activities and workplace conduct. As indicators of the ethical climate, they used eight different criteria, including manipulation, cheating, norm-violation, competence, participation in the work, emotional dedication, continuation dedication, internal happiness, and effort.

Scientists have observed that a moral atmosphere comprises both human and organizational characteristics and is a representation of ethical behavior. It is claimed that the primary criteria for judging whether people are moral are whether they have good intentions when acting in a certain way. As a result of copying their manager, who would be viewed as an example, people are also inclined to act ethically or unethically, Dean and co. Presence of chemicals. According to Farrell and colleagues, this behavior is known as "respect for power. According to Alvarado, humans typically act if they're under duress, or immorally under a lot of pressure; while under pressure, people generally lessen their focus on moral principles than when they have plenty of time to accomplish their goals.

Research Methodology

Some academics, citing Provides as a source, have talked about how important it is to help a company build an internalized moral society by putting in place successful growth through education programs. Businesses with a strong ethical culture should assist in shaping and reshaping employee behavior. To construct and sustain ethical cultures through the implementation of HRD activities and interventions, they researched the traits and influences that contribute to ethical cultures. They argued that companies should integrate factors like formal business structures, business guidelines, etc., procedures, education, and morals programs, motivating CEOs to act ethically, including in accordance with their principles, while also creating a dependable communications channel that encourages for effective, honest business organizations, individuals must follow the code of ethics. For the organization to be successful, written rules must be used in conjunction with a variety of other elements or actions. There is a mindset of ethics in the workplace, or at least a clear understanding. The Enron scandal serves as an excellent illustration of this idea. As noted by Tianjin, offering protection entails essentially developing guidelines for behavior, such as strong conformance programs, in addition to a well-established notification system for potential infractions. Enron, nonetheless, managed to incorporate components into his way of life, which ultimately put Enron at risk of compromising its dignity. So, even though they can offer helpful instructions for molding ethical behavior in employees, codes of ethics are useless. According to existing research, there is a conflict between compliance and integrity initiatives in terms of corporate ethics. Integrity programs are centered on self-governance as opposed to compliance programs, which are focused on laws, regulations, and organizational norms. Although integrity programs aid in upholding business ethics, compliance programs are equally important and should not be disregarded.

A rules-based or compliance program, it is concerned with legal, regulatory, and corporate rule issues that all members of the organization must abide by. To preventing, identifying, and punishing rule infractions, it produces good behavior. Having compliance systems in place gives all employees good agreements and rules, but it is less likely to lead to conflict.

Statistical Methods

According to research, "the strategic leadership role of company executives in starting changes must include the goals of building and keeping moral environments in which people act morally as a matter of course." CEOs can help themselves and their companies a lot if they have an ethical vision and act in an ethical way. The article provided a useful illustration of the importance of ethical leadership development programs. It was thought that these workers had a right to a secure working environment. They went after that first objective: There was no damage to business. Even though there is a lack of accident prevention required under current legislation,

Daniels et al. (2019) say that leadership development programs should be thought of as HRD interventions because they can have a long-lasting effect on ethics. With the help of leadership training that promotes ethical ideas and actions, leaders may be able to better understand how their personal values relate to the ethical values of their business. Also, a leader's ethics and principles should be clear because they should show up in everything they do. Since ethical challenges are not restricted by a company's nature or size, ethics training programs are becoming more crucial in all enterprises. Some small businesses with limited resources incorporate ethics education into other training programs and include it as part of employee orientation. It’s crucial for new hires to receive a good orientation to ethics (refer to figure 1).

Figure 1: SMART Goals

Result & Discussion

Since ethical challenges are not restricted by a company's nature or size, ethics training programmes are becoming more crucial in all enterprises. Some small businesses with tight funds incorporate ethics education into the hiring process and include this.

Concentrate on other training programmes. New hires should have a good orientation to ethics since they need to understand what is ethical and appropriate and what is not.

It goes on to say that different kinds of training should include ethics as well as orientation. Case studies and situations that encourage and promote ethical behavior should be used to help talk about ethically important topics in the course. In terms of skill development, providing realistic ethical components.

Inferences and strategies

Despite formal regulations such as the rules for economic operations and financial regulation, they play a significant role in enhancing corporate responsibility and ethics but are not enough to encourage moral conduct (Hiep et al. 2021). Programs that are rule-based versus those that are value-based were contrasted. A values-based approach tries to create corporate values and motivate staff to carry out their responsibilities ethically, in contrast to approaches that focus on motivating people to avoid penalties for wrongdoing. To provide employees with ethical discipline, the rule-based approach is focused on compliance. Although it offers formal internal control, compliance- or rule-based programs by themselves are unable to establish an organization's culture of ethics over the long term. Thus, it must be implemented in conjunction with programmes that are based on values (Fróes Couto & de Pádua Carrieri, 2020). Principles orientation is also emphasized by the authors, who note that it makes a substantial contribution to ethical awareness, fosters employee engagement, and involves workers in the company's ethical values (Kwon & Kim, 2020). They held the view that developing programmes with a focus on values directly affects the thoughts and actions of individuals and that a good induction effect limits or reduces the likelihood of unethical activity occurring within firms.

Inferences

We made a theory-based HRD intervention approach to protect against unethical business behavior, which will be driven by either the proposed framework or the environment—forming the basis of the model (focused on healthy organizations). The overall goal of every HRD intervention in the model is performance. We created rule-based interventions, such as morality adherence departments, ethical hotlines, morals guides, and even business codes of ethical behavior based on the three pillars (Doste et al. 2019). Hobbes According to principle, individuals in any group's morality is based on even a limited legal arrangement, including a system of norms, laws, or guidelines that had an impact on the interventions under the rule-based approach. Based on the social contract hypothesis, these All employees are expected to use interventions as clear ethical standards, which will help to lessen the ambiguity of their actions when faced with ethical dilemmas (Lefkowitz, 2021).

Strategies

Most of this essay is based on a review of the literature. As a result, the proposed model's applicability in real-world situations has not been shown; similarly, among all hypotheses, this needs to be done.

A prospective investigation into the usefulness of the suggested model is also advised.

There must be more clarification on each component of the model so that they all work together to achieve the same objective, which is to encourage ethical behavior within the firm.

Conclusion

The possibility of unethical activity persists regardless of a group's or project's scope level. This is real. Whether a certain action is seen as ethical or unethical has some murky and overlapped areas. Before confronting behaviors that are unclear, people frequently stick to their own ideals and viewpoints. For instance, people might act unethically from a deontological standpoint but determine that in each circumstance, another course of conduct would be more moral. The standards and values of each organization influence their judgment.

Additionally, this summary is intended to promote the knowledge obtained from this review. One must rely on each to determine what is ethical or unethical.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Acknowledgement

The authors are thankful to the institutional authority for completion of the work.

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