The Crucial Role of Turnover Intentions in Transforming Moral Disengagement Into Deviant Behavior at Work

Organizational deviance represents a costly behavior to many organizations. While some precursors to deviance have been identified, we hope to add to our predictive capabilities. Utilizing social cognitive theory and psychological contract theory as explanatory concepts, we explore the role of moral...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2014-01, Vol.119 (2), p.193-208
Main Authors: Christian, Jessica Siegel, Ellis, Aleksander P. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absenteeism
Applied psychology
Banduras
Behavior
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive psychology
Contracts
Costs
Decision making
Deviance
Deviant behavior
Education
Employees
Ethical behavior
Ethics
Hypotheses
Labour turnover
Management
Morality
Nurses
Organizational behaviour
Organizational effectiveness
Philosophy
Psychology
Quality of Life Research
Regulation
Social psychology
U.S.A
Work environment
Workplaces
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Summary:Organizational deviance represents a costly behavior to many organizations. While some precursors to deviance have been identified, we hope to add to our predictive capabilities. Utilizing social cognitive theory and psychological contract theory as explanatory concepts, we explore the role of moral disengagement and turnover intentions, testing our hypotheses using two samples: a sample of 44 nurses from a hospital system in the Southwestern United States (Study 1), and a sample of 52 working adults collected from an online survey system (Study 2). Results strongly supported our hypotheses in both samples, indicating that the self-regulatory deactivation inherent in moral disengagement led to increased organizational deviance; effects that were much more pronounced when turnover intentions were high. Our findings support the increased role of cognition in determining behavior when environmental pressures stemming from the psychological contract have been altered, leading to a number of theoretical and practical implications, particularly in industries with high turnover rates.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-013-1631-4