Cheating under pressure: A self-protection model of workplace cheating behavior

Area of Science:

• Organizational Behavior
• Workplace Ethics
• Psychology

Background:

• Workplace cheating, an unethical behavior for personal gain, is a concern for organizations.
• Organizations may inadvertently foster cheating by prioritizing high performance.
• The pursuit of high performance can create pressure, potentially leading to unethical employee actions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the link between organizational emphasis on high performance and workplace cheating behavior.
• To explore the mediating roles of self-protection needs, anger, and self-serving cognitions in this relationship.
• To develop and validate a measure for assessing cheating behavior in the workplace.

Main Methods:

• A multi-study approach was employed, including the development of a cheating behavior measure.
• Two time-separated field studies were conducted to test the theoretical predictions.
• Statistical analyses, including mediation analyses, were used to examine the proposed relationships.

Main Results:

• Performance pressure, driven by high performance demands, was found to increase cheating behavior.
• Anger was identified as a mediator in the relationship between performance pressure and cheating behavior (Study 2).
• Self-serving cognitions were also found to mediate the effects of performance pressure on cheating behavior (Study 3).

Conclusions:

• Organizational focus on high performance can unintentionally encourage workplace cheating.
• Understanding the psychological mechanisms (anger, self-serving cognitions) is crucial for addressing this issue.
• Findings offer practical implications for managing performance and ethical conduct in organizations.