The impact of stretch service goals on unethical behaviors of nurses: A three-wave cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Stretch service goals strive to motivate healthcare practitioners to maintain high quality in service provision. However, little is known about how stretch service goals trigger nurses' unethical behavior. RESEARCH AIM: This study aimed to investigate the influence of stretch service goals on nurses' unethical behavior, as well as the mediating effects of patient entitlement and nurses' emotional dissonance. RESEARCH DESIGN: A quantitative cross-sectional study is designed. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: We sourced data by conducting a time-lagged three-wave survey study from March to September 2020. Random sampling was used, and data were collected from 422 nurse-patient pairs in Chinese hospitals. Bootstrapping method and structural equation modeling were employed to verify the conceptual model. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: The study was approved by the designated authority within hospitals and ethical committees. RESULTS: Stretch service goals are not directly related to nurses' unethical behavior. Stretch service goals can trigger nurses' unethical behavior via patient entitlement. Patient entitlement and nurses' emotional dissonance play a chain-mediating role between stretch service goals and nurses' unethical behavior. CONCLUSIONS: In the context of the healthcare industry, nurses may engage in unethical behavior due to the pressure of achieving stretch service goals. This study contributes to opening the "black box" of stretch service goals and nurses' unethical behavior by exploring the chain-mediating effect of patient entitlement and nurses' emotional dissonance.

The Impact of Self-Efficacy on Nurses' Well-Being: Does Digital Competence Matter?

PURPOSE: Drawing on person-environment fit theory and social cognitive theory, this study aimed to examine how self-efficacy affects nurses' workplace well-being via person-job fit and the moderating role of digital competence. METHODS: A two-wave survey was conducted to collect data. Data were collected from six hundred and ninety-five nurses at three Chinese hospitals between May 2022 and September 2022. We employed hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping to analyze the data. RESULTS: Self-efficacy positively influenced person-job fit (ß = .55, p < .001), which positively affected nurses' workplace well-being (ß = .32, p < .001). Person-job fit mediated the effect of self-efficacy on nurses' workplace well-being. Additionally, digital competence strengthened the positive impact of self-efficacy on person-job fit (ß = .12, p < .001). CONCLUSION: Recruiting nurses with both self-efficacy and digital competence benefits hospitals. It is critical for nurses to improve their digital competence for achieving person-job fit and attaining workplace well-being in the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era.

Why Good Employees Do Bad Things: The Link between Pro-Environmental Behavior and Workplace Deviance.

Despite the significance of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in the workplace, most of the existing studies have neglected its negative work outcomes. Drawing upon moral licensing theory and cognitive dissonance theory, we construct a conceptual model of the influence mechanism of employees' PEB (i.e., public-sphere PEB, private-sphere PEB) on workplace deviance through psychological entitlement, and the moderating effect of rationalization of workplace deviance on the relationship between psychological entitlement and workplace deviance. Using two-stage survey data from 216 employees in China, we performed hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modeling method to test our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that public-sphere PEB positively affects psychological entitlement, while private-sphere PEB negatively affects psychological entitlement. Psychological entitlement further positively affects workplace deviance. In addition, rationalization of workplace deviance strengthens the positive impact of psychological entitlement on workplace deviance. This study offers novel insights into the dark side of PEB literature by exploring the PEB-workplace deviance relationship. This study also contributes to managerial implications of how PEB leads to workplace deviance and how to address this issue.

Environmental Penalties, Investor Attention and Stock Market Reaction: Moderating Roles of Air Pollution and Industry Saliency.

Despite the importance of environmental penalties in environmental enforcement, how and under what situations they impact stock market reaction is still unclear. Drawing on the theories of expectancy violation and attention driven, a conceptual model is built to explore how environmental penalty influences stock market reaction through investor attention. Furthermore, it is explored that the air pollution and industry saliency facilitate the indirect relationship between environmental penalty and investor attention. We empirically test this theoretical framework using a sample of 88 listed companies that received the environmental penalty. Up to 31 December 2020, a total of 88 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges were obtained as samples by collecting the announcement of environmental penalties of listed companies on Juchao Network. Furthermore Baidu index is taken as a proxy for investor attention in this study. Our findings reveal that investor attention plays mediating role in the relationship between environmental penalty and abnormal returns, while the direct effect of environmental penalty on stock market reaction has not been verified, thus, investor attention plays a complete mediating role between them. In addition, air pollution moderates the relationship between Environmental penalties and investor attention. The study found that enterprises in heavy pollution industries might suffer safety-in-numbers effect, which would weaken the directly negative impact of environmental penalties, and verified the moderating effect of industry saliency. These findings provide theoretical and practical implications for understanding how environmental penalties influence on stock market reaction.

Effect of workplace ostracism on emotional exhaustion and unethical behaviour among Chinese nurses: A time-lagged three-wave survey.

AIM: This study examined the following: (a) the impact of nurses' workplace ostracism on unethical behaviour; (b) mediating role of emotional exhaustion between nurses' workplace ostracism and unethical behaviour; and (c) moderating effect of hostile attribution bias. BACKGROUND: While unethical behaviour is a workplace phenomenon that can negatively influence the sustainable development of settings, few nurse studies have explored it. This study identified an interpersonal antecedent of unethical behaviour: workplace ostracism. DESIGN: A time-lagged three-wave survey was conducted over 3 months (November 2016-January 2017) to collect data. METHODS: Nurses (N = 530) from three hospitals in China completed three anonymous self-reported questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, linear regression, and moderated mediation tests were performed, and data analysed using SPSS 23.0 and Mplus7.4. RESULTS: Workplace ostracism positively influenced nurses' unethical behaviour and emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between workplace ostracism and unethical behaviour. Nurses' hostile attribution bias moderated the effect of workplace ostracism on emotional exhaustion and unethical behaviour. CONCLUSION: Workplace ostracism was an important interpersonal factor predicting unethical behaviour. Nurse supervisors should establish a harmonious interpersonal environment and be aware of hostile attribution bias to prevent nurses' unethical behaviour. IMPACT: Workplace ostracism is a pervasive phenomenon in the nursing workplace that contributes to unethical behaviour. Nurse supervisors and staff should together establish harmonious working environments without workplace ostracism. Nurse supervisors should pay attention to nurses' emotions and conduct psychological counselling to minimize the negative effects of workplace ostracism. This study contributed to understanding how and why nurses engaged in unethical behaviour.

How Competitive Orientation Influences Unethical Decision-making in Clinical Practices?

PURPOSE: This study aims to investigate how competitive orientation influences unethical decision-making (UDM) through relationship conflict and the moderating effect of hostile attribution bias. METHODS: This study was conducted using a self-report questionnaire. Data were collected from 727 employees in Chinese hospitals. For each variable, measures were adopted or adapted from existing literature. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. Common method variance was established using Harman's single-factor test. RESULTS: Competitive orientation is significantly and positively associated with relationship conflict (ß = .36, p < .001) and UDM (ß = .35, p < .001). Relationship conflict is significantly and positively associated with UDM (ß = .51, p < .001). Relationship conflict partially mediates the relationship between competitive orientation and UDM. In addition, hostile attribution bias strengthens the positive relationship between competitive orientation and UDM through relationship conflict. CONCLUSION: This study provides some implications for hospital employees to deal with ethical dilemmas in decision-making. Hospital employees including nurses, physicians, and other health-care professionals should raise awareness of competitive orientation and adopt a cooperative approach to human relations. Effective training programs should be utilized to direct all hospital employees to depress hostile attribution bias whenever possible to everything in clinical practice.