From helping hands to harmful acts: When and how employee volunteering promotes workplace deviance

Teng Iat Loi, Kristine M. Kuhn, Arvin Sahaym, Kenneth D. Butterfield, Thomas M. Tripp

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

80 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study examines how the laudable behavior of employee volunteering can lead to deviant workplace behavior. We draw on the moral licensing and organizational justice literatures to propose that the relationship between employee volunteering and workplace deviance is serially mediated by moral license (moral credits and moral credentials) and psychological entitlement. Results from 2 multiwave survey studies of full-time employees from a variety of organizations and industries confirm that moral credits and psychological entitlement serially mediate this relationship, although the proposed mediating role of moral credentials was not supported. Organizational justice moderates the impact of psychological entitlement on workplace deviance; the indirect relationship between employee volunteering and workplace deviance weakens when perceptions of organizational justice are high. This study demonstrates a potential dark side to employee volunteering and also contributes to the moral licensing and behavioral ethics literatures.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)944-958
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Applied Psychology
Volume105
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Psychological Association.

Keywords

  • Employee volunteering
  • Moral licensing
  • Organizational justice
  • Psychological entitlement
  • Workplace deviance

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