1270: The Consequences of Unethical Pro-Family Behavior (15594)

“For the sake of the family”, recent research suggests that employees may go extra the mile to benefit their families even at the cost of violating organizational norms, a phenomenon referred to as unethical pro-family behavior (UPFB). Despite its prevalence in the workplace, UPFB research is still in its infancy and our understanding of its consequences for employees themselves remain very limited. Drawing from moral self-regulation theory, we propose that UPFB elicits ambivalent cognitions that have downstream consequences for employees’ subsequent behaviors at home and at work. We propose that because of its beneficial nature to the family, UPFB elicits perceptions of family-based moral credits that in turn lead to family-directed incivility. Yet, given its violation of moral norms, UPFB elicits perceptions of organization-based moral deficits that in turn propel organization-directed helping behaviors. Results from a multi-wave study of 511 employee and spouse dyads in a wide range of industries provided support for our hypotheses. In addition, employees’ moral identity weakened employees’ perceived family-based moral credits following UPFB and strengthened employees’ perceived organization-based moral deficits in the aftermath of UPFB. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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