Integrating relative deprivation (Crosby, 1984) and social comparison (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007) theories, this paper extends perceived overqualification to the dyad level with perceived relative qualification, and proposes that the two may lead to employees' knowledge hiding from relevant peers through a complex interpersonal process. Across two studies, with 940 dyadic-level observations (Study 1) and 245 dyadic-level observations (Study 2), respectively, the social relations modeling analyses revealed that an employee who perceived himself/herself as overqualified for the job was more likely to hide knowledge from his/her peers on the team. Furthermore, when the employee perceived himself/herself as relatively more qualified than a specific peer, he/she was more likely to hide knowledge from this peer because he/she was both contemptuous and envious of this peer. Finally, the relationship between the focal employee's relative qualification to a specific peer and his/her knowledge hiding from this peer via his/her contempt and envy of this peer, respectively, was stronger when his/her perceived overqualification was low than when it was high. Implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed.
Summary Unethical behaviors are prevalent and costly in organizations, and much recent research attention has been paid to different forms of workplace unethical behaviors. We contend that the extant research has overlooked an important form of workplace‐related unethical behaviors: unethical behaviors that are conducted to benefit one's family but which violate societal and organizational moral rules, a construct we label as “unethical pro‐family behavior” (UPFB). Our paper systematically conceptualizes UPFB and develops a scale for it. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, we argue that employees with stronger family financial pressure are more likely to employ moral disengagement mechanisms to deactivate moral self‐regulation, resulting in higher levels of UPFB. Additionally, we argue that the proposed relationship is more pronounced when employees have high family motivation but is mitigated when employees have high organizational identification. Two studies are conducted for this paper. In Study 1 (N = 328 for Sample 1; N = 243 for Sample 2; N = 279 for Sample 3; N = 267 for Sample 4), we demonstrate that our UPFB scale has good construct validity and that our construct is differentiable from relevant constructs. In two time‐lagged survey samples in Study 2 (N = 255 for Sample 1; N = 233 for Sample 2), we find support for our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we live and work in the short-term, but history suggests that the crisis may also exert deeper, longerlasting effects. With the aim of providing preliminary insight into this possibility, we theoretically construct and empirically test hypotheses for how exposure to COVID-19 stimuli (e.g., reading or watching media coverage, observing relief efforts) relates to the deep-seated values that guide workers' attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, we build from prior work to posit that exposure to COVID-19 stimuli is positively associated with workers' self-transcendent prosocial values, which motivate prosocial behaviors directed toward society as a whole (i.e., charitable donations) and coworkers (i.e., helping). Extend the extant literature, we further argue that exposure to COVID-19 stimuli will be positively associated with conservation values emphasizing selfrestraint, submission, protection of order, and harmony in relations, which in turn influences workers' willingness to tolerate mistreatment by authorities (i.e., abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, exploitation). Evidence from 2,929 full-time Chinese employees tracked for nearly 2 months and a diverse sample of 310 workers in the United States generally support our arguments, but also provide insight into potential cultural nuances.
In recent years, a rapidly growing literature has shed light on important costs and benefits of prosocial motivation in the workplace. However, researchers have studied prosocial motivation using various labels, conceptualizations, and operationalizations, leaving this body of knowledge fragmented. In this study, we contribute to the literature by providing an integrated framework that organizes extant constructs and measures of prosocial motives along two dimensions: level of autonomy (discretionary/obligatory) and level of generality (global/contextual/positional). Drawing upon this framework, we conducted a meta-analysis with 252 samples and 666 effect sizes to examine the effects of prosocial motivation on workplace outcomes. Moderator analyses were performed to resolve inconsistencies in the empirical literature and understand the context under which prosocial motivation had the strongest or weakest effect. We found that prosocial motivation, in general, was beneficial for employee well-being (trueρ¯false^ = .23), prosocial behavior (trueρ¯false^ = .35), job performance (trueρ¯false^ = .20), and career success (trueρ¯false^ = .06). The direction and magnitude of these effects depended on the autonomy, generality, and measurement of prosocial motivation, the nature of the outcome (i.e., type of prosocial behavior, subjectivity of performance measures, and forms of career success), as well as the cultural context. Importantly, prosocial motivation had incremental validity above and beyond general cognitive ability and Big Five personality traits for predicting all four outcomes. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings and offer a guiding framework for future research efforts.
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