建言行为与政治行为之间的关系:基于道德凭证机制的研究

Research on the Relationship Between Voice Behavior and Political Behavior: Based on Mechanism of Moral Credential

基于道德许可理论的道德凭证机制以及道德一致性的理论线索,探究了在职场排斥调节作用下以及在感知的建设性变革责任的抑制性调节作用下,建言行为通过心理权利影响政治行为的过程。对555名员工及其上司进行问卷调查,结果显示,在职场排斥作为边界条件影响下的建言行为通过心理权利的中介作用正向影响政治行为,而感知的建设性变革责任作为抑制性边界条件负向调节心理权利的这种中介关系。研究结果从理论和实证上解释了职场排斥是激发建言行为通过心理权利产生道德凭证效应的边界条件,而感知的建设性变革责任作为边界条件能够抑制这种效应的发生。

Researchers have proposed that voice behavior is extra-role behavior that is not required by formal job duties. Since the voice behaviors can be beneficial to others and the organization, employees with more voice behavior can feel morally praiseworthy. This perception can make employees produce moral license to violate workplace norms and even to harm the organization and colleagues. However, in the process of implementing voice behavior, what situations will the employees encounter through the moral licensing mechanism, which makes the employees who were originally doing good deeds become immoral people? Do the negative reactions of other employees to these employees induce such mechanism? These questions remain unanswered.The present research tapped in several limitations in the literature. First, there are few studies on the possible negative effects of voice behavior on employees’ subsequent work attitude and behavior choice. Second, employees may face negative reactions from others after putting forward their opinions. But there is a lack of relevant research on employees’ psychological and behavioral responses to external negative reactions. Third, the boundary conditions under which moral licensing theory works are still unclear. Fourth, the research on the inhibitory conditions of moral license effect is ignored.This research first tested whether employees’ voice behaviors will trigger their psychological entitlement under high workplace ostracism. This research also proved that psychological entitlement can play the moral credential mechanism based on the framework of moral licensing theory. Then,this research examined whether psychological entitlement can be significantly associated with employees’ political behavior, which is considered as immoral behavior. Besides, this research investigated whether employee’s felt responsibility for constructive change(FRCC), as an inhibitory moderating variable, made voice behavior unable to have a significant impact on political behavior through psychological entitlement.This research adopted the supervisor-employee matching method to collect data at three time points, and included 555 employee’s questionnaires and 117 supervisor’s questionnaires. We conducted the hierarchical regression and the bootstrapping method to test relationships among variables.Results showed that:(1) Only with high levels of workplace ostracism, the indirect effect between voice behavior and political behavior through psychological entitlement was significant;(2) Only in low levels of FRCC, the indirect effect between voice behavior and political behavior through psychological entitlement was significant.Our findings provided several theoretical implications. First, this research deepened the understanding of the follow-up effects of voice behavior,especially the negative ones. Second, taking workplace ostracism as a specific context, the research showed that, after employees encountered negative external reactions due to voice behavior, they indeed had negative cognitive states. Third, the results of the research responded to the call of scholars to further explore the specific boundary conditions for the occurrence of moral credential effect. Finally, this research found, for the first time, that FRCC could suppress the moral credential effect of voice behavior.Our findings have several practical implications. First, organizations must face up to the complexity of moral attributes of employees’ work behaviors. Second, organizations should strive to create a positive atmosphere that encourages and embraces voice behavior. Third, organizations should also cultivate employees’ internal motivation and sense of responsibility in the performance of the moral working tasks.