Moral Emotion, Moral Cognition, and (Im)Moral Behavior in the Workplace

Book excerpt: Moral behavior is subject to socially accepted moral norms and also has a pervasive influence on organizational performance. With the emergence of ethical issues found in organizations, practitioners and scholars pay increasing attention to ethics management. Therefore, workplace moral behavior (e.g., pro-social behavior and organizational citizenship behavior - OCB) and immoral behavior (e.g., interpersonal abusive behavior, deviant/counterproductive behavior, and unethical pro-organizational behavior) have also received substantial research interests over the past decades. To date, the most common framework used to study moral behavior has been the cognitive approach, with abundant evidence demonstrating that emotion and cognition are the two core elements in generating and influencing workplace (im)moral behavior. However, limited studies have been conducted to explore the emotional/cognitive processes or integrative moral emotion-cognition system relevant to workplace moral behavior. Despite our knowledge of the antecedents and consequences of workplace (im)moral behaviors, more research on the generating mechanism, influencing mechanism, transformation mechanism, and governance strategies is needed. For example, it is unclear how exhibiting (im)moral behavior in the workplace would impact the actor’s and the third-party observer’s emotions, thoughts, feelings, and subsequent behavior. Besides, the question of whether ethical/unethical leader behavior would trigger a “trickle-down effect” is underdeveloped, which refers to the fact that how the behavior or perception of the top leaders affects employees from top to bottom along the formal vertical power chain. In addition, we have little knowledge on when, how, and why the ethical employees (the so-called “good soldiers”) would engage in workplace immoral behavior, and vice-versa.