Employee Honesty-Humility and Workplace Deviant Behavior: From the Perspective of Trait Activation Theory

Han Zhiwei; Xi Yiheng; Qin Jia; Ren Zhishuai; Hu Feng

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240121

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (1) : 178-186. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240121

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

Employee Honesty-Humility and Workplace Deviant Behavior: From the Perspective of Trait Activation Theory

Han Zhiwei¹, Xi Yiheng², Qin Jia¹, Ren Zhishuai¹, Hu Feng¹

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Abstract

Although numerous studies have confirmed that employee honesty-humility negatively predicts workplace deviant behavior, most studies have focused on the direct effect of employee honesty-humility on workplace deviant behavior, and have ignored the role of organizational contexts in this process. Identifying which organizational contexts strengthen or weaken the direct effect of employee honesty-humility on workplace deviant behavior can not only provide a more comprehensive understanding of the process by which employee honesty-humility affects workplace deviant behavior, but also adopt corresponding measures in management practices to lead employee work behaviors toward the direction expected by organizations.
Based on the Trait Activation Theory, this study explores the organizational contextual conditions that may influence the direct effect of employee honesty-humility on workplace deviant behavior. Specifically, we argue that two ethics-related organizational contexts - ethical leadership behavior and team ethical climate - can activate employee honest-humility, thereby curbing the occurrence of workplace deviant behavior. In addition, ethical leadership behavior may also indirectly activate employee honesty-humility by promoting team ethical climate, thereby discouraging workplace deviant behavior.
We employed a multi-stage questionnaire survey to collect the data, which consisted of three stages with an interval of one month. In the first stage, employees were asked to rate their honest-humility and answer basic demographic information. In the second stage, employees were asked to evaluate ethical leadership behaviors of their team leaders and team ethical climate of their teams. In the third stage, employees were asked to report their workplace deviant behavior. Valid data were obtained from 30 teams with a total of 221 employees. The results showed that: (1) Ethical leadership behavior strengthened the negative relationship between employee honesty-humility and workplace deviant behavior; (2) Team ethical climate strengthened the negative relationship between employee honesty-humility and workplace deviant behavior; (3) Team ethical climate mediated the moderating effect of ethical leadership behavior on the relationship between employee honesty-humility and workplace deviant behavior.
This study has several theoretical contributions. First, by investigating the moderating effects of ethical leadership behavior and team ethical climate on the relationship between employee honesty-humility and workplace deviant behavior, this study provides a more comprehensive theoretical explanation for understanding the relationship between employee honesty-humility and workplace deviant behavior. Second, this study confirms that ethical leadership behavior and team ethical climate can act as trait-related contexts to activate employee honesty-humility, thus inhibiting the occurrence of workplace deviant behavior, which provides a novel perspective to understand the relationship between ethical leadership behavior and ethical climate and employee workplace deviant behavior. Finally, this study finds that trait-related contexts at the social level can influence the work behavior expression process of personality traits by affecting trait-related contexts at the organizational level, thus making a certain contribution to the Trait Activation Theory. Regarding practical implications, the findings suggest that managers should actively engage ethical leadership behavior and promote team ethical climate to activate employee honesty-humility, thus leading the development of their work behaviors in line with organization's expectations. Research deficiencies and prospects are also discussed.

Key words

honesty-humility / workplace deviant behavior / ethical leadership behavior / team ethical climate / trait activation theory

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Han Zhiwei, Xi Yiheng, Qin Jia, Ren Zhishuai, Hu Feng. Employee Honesty-Humility and Workplace Deviant Behavior: From the Perspective of Trait Activation Theory[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(1): 178-186 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240121

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