When focus and vision become a nightmare: Bottom-line mentality climate, shared vision, and unit unethical conduct.

Drawing on goal shielding theory (Shah et al., 2002), our study highlights the roles of bottom-line mentality climates and shared vision in encouraging collective unethical conduct in pursuit of financial results. Consistent with the theory, we hypothesize that high bottom-line mentality leaders shape their unit's bottom-line mentality climate by explicitly clarifying the importance of prioritizing financial results above all else and using motivational resources to encourage a sole focus on bottom-line attainment. We further hypothesize that a unit's shared vision, which captures a collective sense of purpose and direction, is a critical aspect of the unit's motivational context that increases the likelihood for collective bottom-line enhancing, unethical behaviors (i.e., concealing errors, bribery, and unethical pro-organizational behavior) in units with a salient bottom-line mentality climate. We test our hypotheses in a two-wave, multi-industry field study of work units in central Italy (N = 96). Results indicate that leaders with a bottom-line mentality foster a bottom-line mentality climate in the units they lead, and the linkages with unit unethical conduct are dependent on the unit's shared vision. While shared vision strengthened the effects of bottom-line mentality climates on concealing errors, it served as a necessary condition to motivate more severe forms of unethical conduct. Our study thus demonstrates a dark side to shared vision in that it channels motivational resources toward a unit's bottom-line priorities. When those priorities are singularly focused on the bottom line, shared vision can help to motivate undesirable behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Leader sleep devaluation, employee sleep, and unethical behavior.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study is to examine the effect of leader sleep devaluation (which we define as leader behaviors that signal to employees that sleep should be sacrificed for work) on the sleep and unethical behavior of subordinates. DESIGN: Across 2 studies (with 3 total samples of participants), we use a cross-sectional survey, a diary study completed by employees, and a diary study completed by employees and their leaders. SETTING: Study 1 - a convenience sample of working adults in Italy, including 575 subordinates nested under 140 leaders. Study 2A - 135 working adults recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Study 2B - 127 employee-supervisor dyads recruited from the Study Response project. MEASUREMENTS: Survey measures of leader behaviors, subordinates sleep, and subordinate unethical behavior. RESULTS: Sleep devaluing leader behavior has harmful effects on employee sleep, and that these effects occur above and beyond the effects of abusive supervision and other alternative explanations. Subordinate sleep quality has a mediating role between leader sleep devaluation and subordinate unethical behavior. Effects for sleep quantity were inconsistent. CONCLUSIONS: Leaders can adversely influence the sleep and work experience of their subordinates. Specifically, sleep devaluing leader behavior undermines subordinate sleep, which in turn is associated with higher levels of subordinate unethical behavior.

Within-individual increases in innovative behavior and creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time: A social-cognitive theory perspective.

Studies of innovative behavior (the generation, dissemination, and implementation of new ideas) have generally overlooked the agency perspective on this important type of performance behavior. Guided by social-cognitive theory, we propose a moderated mediation relationship to explain why and how employees become motivated to make things happen through their innovative endeavors. First, we propose that within-individual increases in organizational trust and perceived respect by colleagues promote within-individual increases in creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time. Second, we propose that within-individual increases in self-efficacy beliefs promote within-individual increases in idea generation, dissemination, and implementation over time. Finally, we propose that psychological collectivism (a between-individual variable) is a moderator, and that a higher level of psychological collectivism weakens the positive relationship between within-individual increases in self-efficacy beliefs and within-individual increases in innovative behavior. Repeated measures collected from 267 employees in Italy at 3 time points over an 8-month period generally support our proposed dynamic moderated mediation relationship.