Moral or Lawful? When Legal Constraints Reverse the Motivational Benefits of Moral Considerations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kundro, Timothy G.; Croitoru, Natalie; Helgason, Beth Anne
• 署名单位: University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; University of London; London Business School
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2023.17545
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1849-1865
• 关键词: morality; ETHICS; LEGAL; motivation; PROACTIVITY

摘要

Nearly every employee is subject to some form of legal requirement as a function of their work. Laws are often implemented by authorities to ensure that employees and organizations engage in ethical and moral conduct at work. Importantly, acting in a moral manner is linked to benefits for employees, increasing intrinsic motivation that facilitates high levels of proactive behavior. Yet, employees increasingly face situations where laws or regulations conflict with what they perceive as morally appropriate (i.e., legal constraints on moral behavior), which we argue instead have negative consequences for employees. Combining insights from the literature on motivation and moral foundations theory, we propose that when employees face legal constraints on moral behavior, they feel less intrinsically motivated, leading them to engage in less proactive behavior. We further predict that legal constraints are less damaging when employees perceive them as necessary versus unnecessary evils. We test our model across three complementary studies: a field study of employees from a company in a heavily regulated industry and two preregistered experiments.