不道德行为在组织管理中的“涓滴”效应

The Trickle-down Effect of Unethical Behavior in Organizational Management

基于“涓滴”效应框架和社会学习理论,本文构建一个“高层领导者—中层领导者—基层员工”逐级影响的多层次有调节的中介模型,检验不道德行为的“涓滴”效应。针对某高新技术产业园区的企业,收集了87个团队共450名员工的多时点上下级追踪配对数据。研究表明:高层领导者不道德行为对中层领导者不道德行为存在显著的正向影响,中层领导者不道德行为对基层员工工作场所偏离存在显著的正向影响;中层领导者不道德行为在高层领导者不道德行为影响基层员工工作场所偏离的过程中起中介作用;上下级社会交换正向调节了下属的学习效果。本文丰富了不道德行为在组织中的传播机制研究,同时也启示领导者“以身作则”式管理的重要性。最后,讨论了贡献、局限和有待进一步研究的问题。

In organizational management,it is interesting and crucial to investigate whether top managers’unethical behavior trigger employees to behave unethically even though they have little chance to directly interact with each other.Academia has defined such indirect social influence alongside the organizational hierarchy as trickle-down effect.However,less is known about the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the trickle-down effect of unethical behavior.Based on the framework of trickle-down effect and social learning theory,this study develops a multilevel moderated mediation model linking top managers,middle managers and employees.By collecting time-lagged and multisource data(87 teams and 450 employees)in a national high-tech industrial park and analyzing the data using Mplus 7.4,the present study finds that:(1)top managers’unethical behavior is positively related to middle managers’unethical behavior,and middle managers’unethical behavior is positively related to employees’workplace deviance;(2)middle managers’unethical behavior mediates the relationship of top managers’unethical behavior and employee workplace deviance;(3)the social exchange between top and middle managers moderates their positive influence of unethical behavior;(4)the social exchange between middle managers and employees moderates the relationship of middle manager unethical behavior and employee workplace deviance.This study not only enriches research on the spread of unethical behavior in organizations,but also inspires leaders to lead by example.Contributions,limitations,and future research direction are also outlined.