Abstract:

Unethical pro-supervisor behavior refers to actions that are intended to promote the effective functioning of leaders and violate core societal values, mores, laws, or standards of proper conduct. Although subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior protects the personal interest of supervisors in the short term, it can be detrimental to the reputation of the supervisor and the company in the long term, thus hindering the high-quality development of the organization. Existing research has devoted considerable efforts to the antecedents of unethical pro-supervisor behavior. However, few studies have explored the consequences of unethical pro-supervisor behavior, which leads to an unanswered research question: will a subordinate engaging in unethical pro-supervisor behavior persist in this behavior in the future?

This study aims to investigate supervisors’ responses to subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior and how these responses shape subsequent unethical pro-supervisor behavior. Drawing on the “Bao” theory, we proposed that supervisors have two paradoxical responses (gratitude-driven resource rewards versus guilt-driven punishment) to their subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior, which depends on supervisors’ integrity. Supervisors with high levels of integrity will respond to their subordinates who engage in unethical pro-supervisor behavior with guilt-driven punishment (a negative “Bao”), which reduces subordinates’ subsequent unethical pro-supervisor behavior. In contrast, supervisors with low levels of integrity will respond to their subordinates who engage in unethical pro-supervisor behavior with gratitude-driven resource rewards (a positive “Bao”), which increases subordinates’ subsequent unethical pro-supervisor behavior.

We conducted three studies. In Study 1, we conducted a scenario-based experiment to explore initial evidence for our hypotheses. In the scenario-based experiment, 120 pairs of subjects played the supervisor role and employee role. Table 1 showed the result of descriptive statistics and correlations for Study 1, which initially supported our research hypotheses. The result of Table 2 showed that when the level of supervisors’ integrity was lower, subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior increased supervisors’ resource rewards through supervisors’ gratitude, which, in turn, increased subordinates’ subsequent unethical pro-supervisor behavior (i.e., the positive change in UPSB). However, when the level of supervisors’ integrity was higher, subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior increased supervisors’ punishment through supervisors’ guilt, which, in turn, reduced subordinates’ subsequent unethical pro-supervisor behavior.

Study 1 established the internal validity of our findings. However, its external validity is limited. Hence, we conducted a cross-sectional survey study (Study 2: four-wave data from 277 supervisor-subordinate dyads) and a diary survey study (Study 3: data from 87 supervisor-subordinate dyads over 10 working days). Table 3 and Table 5 showed the the result of descriptive statistics and correlations for Study 2 and Study 3 respectively. And Table 4 and Table 6 showed the result of path analysis for Study 2 and Study 3 respectively. Mplus 8.0 was used to analyze the data. Based on the results above, our hypotheses were supported again.

This research has several theoretical implications. First, we introduced the perspective of supervisor response (i.e., supervisors’ emotional and behavioral responses) to examine the consequences of subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior, which advances the literature on unethical pro-supervisor behavior. Second, based on Bao’s theory, we explain how supervisors paradoxically respond to subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior. In doing so, this research contributes to the development of Chinese indigenous management theory. Third, we identified that the moral quality of supervisors (supervisors’ integrity) plays an important role in determining supervisors’ responses to subordinates’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior.

Key words: unethical pro-supervisor behavior, supervisor resource reward, supervisor punishment, gratitude, guilt, supervisor integrity, Bao theory