Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Research in Human Resource Management
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Linking Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior to Organization Based Self-Esteem
Sumit Kumar Ghosh
ABSTRACT:
In the recent past, studies pertaining to unethical pro-organizational behavior have been of interest to researchers (Steele et al., 2023). Umphress and Bingham (2011, p.622) have defined UPOB “as actions that are intended to promote the effective functioning of the organization or its members (e.g., leaders) and violate core societal values, mores, laws, or standards of proper conduct”. Umphress et al. (2010) provided with a measure for UPOB. Since then, its relationship with quite a few other variables (see Mishra et al., 2022) has been explored. Steele et al. (2023) argued that the definition provided by Umphress and Bingham (2011) needs to broaden as it focuses primarily on prosocial cause as a reason to engage in UPOB, whereas self-centeredness of an employee is also a reason to engage in UPOB for an employee. Organization based self-esteem (OBSE) is claimed as an outcome of UPOB by Chen et al. (2022). They argue that UPOB results in guilt as well as pride and as OBSE is about “pride” it is positively related to UPOB.
The present study is an extension of a part of Chen et al. (2022) study and I argue that the relationship between UPOB and OBSE will be positive only when the reason behind engaging in UPOB is prosocial. The relationship will be negative if an employee engages in UPOB for self-centeredness reasons.
Keywords: Unethical Pro organizational Behavior, Organization based Self-esteem, Prosocial, Self-centeredness