International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

search-icon

A Proposed Framework of Corporate Social Responsibility Dimensions and Employees' Unethical Pro-organizational Behaviour: Evidence from Chinese SMEs

Open access
Employees' unethical pro-organizational behaviour is an organizational behaviour that is gradually being noticed. Such behaviour, although for the benefit of the organization, may have potential and long-term costs to the organization. Corporate social responsibility has been identified as an important influence on unethical pro-organizational behaviour, but there is a lack of exploration of the dimensional level. This conceptual paper proposes a study which aims to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility stakeholder dimensions on employees' unethical pro-organizational behaviours in the context of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises, these stakeholder dimensions include the environment, community, customer, shareholder, supplier and employee. Judgmental sampling is recommended to select target enterprises and respondents from multiple industries. This study is the first to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility dimensions and unethical pro-organizational behaviour, adding to the research literature on the consequences of corporate social responsibility and the antecedents of unethical pro-organizational behaviour, and has important implications for organizations to engage in corporate social responsibility practices.
Alfirevi?, N., Arslanagi?-Kalajdži?, M., & Lep, Ž. (2023). The role of higher education and civic involvement in converting young adults’ social responsibility to prosocial behaviour. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 2559.
Bayode, O. T., & Duarte, A. P. (2022). Examining the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and turnover intention: Evidence from Nigeria. Administrative Sciences, 12(4), 150.
Bryant, W., & Merritt, S. M. (2021). Unethical pro-organizational behaviour and positive leader–employee relationships. Journal of Business Ethics, 168, 777–793.
Chen, W.-K., Tang, A. D., & Tuan, L. T. (2023). The mediating role of organizational identification between corporate social responsibility dimensions and employee opportunistic behaviour: Evidence from symmetric and asymmetric approach triangulation. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 32(1), 50–74.
Dadaboyev, S. M. U., Choi, S., & Paek, S. (2022). Why do good soldiers in good organizations behave wrongly? The vicarious licensing effect of perceived corporate social responsibility. Baltic Journal of Management, ahead-of-print.
Deng, Y., Cherian, J., Ahmad, N., Scholz, M., & Samad, S. (2022). Conceptualizing the role of target-specific environmental transformational leadership between corporate social responsibility and pro-environmental behaviours of hospital employees. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3565.
El Akremi, A., Gond, J.-P., Swaen, V., De Roeck, K., & Igalens, J. (2018). How do employees perceive corporate responsibility? Development and validation of a multidimensional corporate stakeholder responsibility scale. Journal of Management, 44(2), 619–657.
Griep, Y., Kraak, J. M., Fenneman, J., Jiménez, A., & Lub, X. D. (2023). You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours: Unethical pro-organizational behaviour and deviance in response to different psychological contract states. Journal of Business Research, 156, 113537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113537
Jabari, S., Nikbakhsh, R., Afarinesh, A., & Sharififar, F. (2023). Structural relationships of high-performance work systems and unethical pro-organizational behaviours and the multiple mediating role of moral identity and psychological ownership. The Journal Of Psychological Science, 21(120), 2417–2431. https://doi.org/10.52547/JPS.21.120.2417
Kallmuenzer, A., Bichler, B., Petry, T., & Valeri, M. (2023). Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility activities: The case of family firms. European Business Review.
Landry, A. P., Bélanger, J. J., Snook, D. W., & Gelfanda, M. J. (2023). Job Embeddedness Facilitates Violent Extremism and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviour.
Latif, B., Ong, T. S., Meero, A., Abdul Rahman, A. A., & Ali, M. (2022). Employee-perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee pro-environmental behaviour (PEB): The moderating role of CSR skepticism and CSR authenticity. Sustainability, 14(3), 1380.
Lee, A., Schwarz, G., Newman, A., & Legood, A. (2019). Investigating when and why psychological entitlement predicts unethical pro-organizational behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 154, 109–126.
Li, Y., He, S., Song, M., & Jeon, J. (2023). Exploring the effects of power distance orientation on unethical pro-organisational behaviour from the perspective of management. South African Journal of Business Management, 54(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/sajbm.v54i1.3437
Liao, Z., Yam, K. C., Lee, H. W., Johnson, R. E., & Tang, P. M. (2023). Cleansing or Licensing? Corporate Social Responsibility Reconciles the Competing Effects of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviour on Moral Self-Regulation. Journal of Management, 014920632311548. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063231154845
Liu, W., Zhu, Y., Chen, S., Zhang, Y., & Qin, F. (2022). Moral decline in the workplace: Unethical pro-organizational behaviour, psychological entitlement, and leader gratitude expression. Ethics & Behaviour, 32(2), 110–123.
Luan, K., Lv, M., & Zheng, H. (2022). Corporate social responsibility and cheating behaviour: The mediating effects of organizational identification and perceived supervisor moral decoupling. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 6316.
Luan, Y., Zhao, K., Wang, Z., & Hu, F. (2022). Exploring the Antecedents of Unethical Pro-organizational Behaviour (UPB): A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 1–18.
Mo, S., Lupoli, M. J., Newman, A., & Umphress, E. E. (2023). Good intentions, bad behaviour: A review and synthesis of the literature on unethical prosocial behaviour (UPB) at work. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 44(2), 335–354.
Mo, S., Song, Y., Fang, Y., Wang, M., Shi, J., Jin, W., & Zhao, X. (2022). Performance goal orientation and unethical pro-organizational behaviour: A moderated mediation model. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1–33.
Nejati, M., & Shafaei, A. (2023). Why do employees respond differently to corporate social responsibility? A study of substantive and symbolic corporate social responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management.
Peredy, Z., & Sengjie, Y. (2022). Fairness challenges in the corporate human resource management-some lessons for Chinese companies. Zeszyty Naukowe ZPSB Firma i Rynek, 1 (61, 23–39.
Shen, Y. X., Zhang, C., Zuo, L., Zhou, X., Deng, X., & Zhang, L. (2022). How I Speak Defines What I Do: Effects of the Functional Language Proficiency of Host Country Employees on Their Unethical Pro-organizational Behaviour. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 852450.
Song, Z., & Christian, M. C. (2023). The Influence of High-commitment Human Resource Management on Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviour: The Moderating Role of the Perceived Organizational Support in Nigeria. Organizational Behaviour.
Tacke, F., Knockaert, M., Patzelt, H., & Breugst, N. (2023). When do greedy entrepreneurs exhibit unethical pro-organizational behaviour? The role of new venture team trust. Journal of Management, 49(3), 974–1004.
Tang, P. M., Yam, K. C., Koopman, J., & Ilies, R. (2022). Admired and disgusted? Third parties’ paradoxical emotional reactions and behavioural consequences towards others’ unethical pro?organizational behaviour. Personnel Psychology, 75(1), 33–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12446
Umphress, E. E., Bingham, J. B., & Mitchell, M. S. (2010). Unethical behaviour in the name of the company: The moderating effect of organizational identification and positive reciprocity beliefs on unethical pro-organizational behaviour. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(4), 769.
Wang, H., Zhang, Y., Li, P., & Henry, S. E. (2023). You raise me up and I reciprocate: Linking empowering leadership to organizational citizenship behaviour and unethical pro?organizational behaviour. Applied Psychology, 72(2), 718–742. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12398
Wang, X., Xiang, C., Meng, L., Chi, L., & Li, S. (2022). External corporate social responsibility promotes employees’ unethical pro-organizational behaviour: An attribution perspective. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03235-3
Wang, X., Zheng, X., & Zhao, S. (2022). Repaying the Debt: An Examination of the Relationship between Perceived Organizational Support and Unethical Pro-organizational Behaviour by Low Performers. Journal of Business Ethics, 179(3), 697–709. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04809-0
Xiong, Q., Pan, Q., Nie, S., Guan, F., Nie, X., & Sun, Z. (2023). How Does Collective Moral Judgment Induce Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviours in Infrastructure Construction Projects: The Mediating Role of Machiavellianism. Behavioural Sciences, 13(1), 57. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13010057
Xu, L., Wen, T., & Wang, J. (2022). How does job insecurity cause unethical pro-organizational behaviour? The mediating role of impression management motivation and the moderating role of organizational identification. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 941650. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.941650
Yan, W., Chen, H., He, Y., & Zhang, C. (2023). Abusive supervision and employee unethical pro-organizational behaviour: A moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and traditionality. Chinese Management Studies. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-07-2022-0264
Yin, C., Zhang, Y., & Lu, L. (2021). Employee-oriented CSR and unethical pro-organizational behaviour: The role of perceived insider status and ethical climate rules. Sustainability, 13(12), 6613.
Zonghua, L., Junyun, L., Yulang, G., Ming, Z., & Xu, W. (2022). The effect of corporate social responsibility on unethical pro-organizational behaviour: The mediation of moral identity and moderation of supervisor-employee value congruence. Current Psychology, 1–14.