Eisenberger, Robert2019-09-142019-09-14May 20192019-05May 2019https://hdl.handle.net/10657/4630Organizational researchers have recently begun to investigate antecedents of unethical pro-organizational behaviors, or unethical behaviors intended to help the organization or its members while violating societal norms or laws (e.g., inflating earnings; Umphress & Bingham, 2011). However, this nascent research field has failed to investigate leaders’ pressures for subordinates to engage in unethical pro-organizational behaviors. The current laboratory experiment investigated a possible important antecedent of unethical pro-organizational behaviors termed leaders’ immorality-encouragement (LIE), involving a subordinate’s perception of his or her supervisor urging immoral behavior on behalf of the organization. Using a factorial design with 304 undergraduates, I examined the effects of LIE on cheating behaviors that support a virtual team, including the moderators, leader-member exchange, leader-leader exchange, and teammates’ moral identity symbolization. I predicted that (a) LIE would lead to more unethical pro-organizational behaviors, (b) leader-member exchange and (c) leader-leader exchange would strengthen the relationship, and (d) teammates’ moral identity symbolization would weaken the relationship. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses supported the hypothesized relationships for LIE and leader-member exchange but not the other moderating variables. Supplementary analyses revealed that the incremental positive influence of leader-member exchange on LIE for unethical pro-organizational behaviors was stronger when the lab manager exhibited a close relationship with the team leader (i.e., high leader-leader exchange). These findings yield new insights into the contextual mechanisms that can lead to unethical pro-organizational behaviors.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).LeadersEthicsUnethical work behaviorLeader-member exchangeLeader-leader exchangeTeammates’ moral identity symbolization2019-09-14Thesisborn digital