Although a growing body of literature on star employees has focused on top performers, the influence of moral stars has been neglected, an unfortunate situation given that employees’ moral behavior has prolonged impacts on organizations and society as a whole. In this case, we propose the concept of the moral star, defined as the employee (not the team leader) who exhibits disproportionately high and prolonged morality relative to others and has a reputation of being moral on his or her team. We further draw upon self-categorization theory and investigate the double-edged sword effect of the presence of a moral star on the prosocial behavior of other team members. Specifically, we propose that for nonstar employees who have high levels of moral identity, the presence of a moral star is positively related to their felt moral responsibility and prosocial behavior. In contrast, for nonstar employees with low levels of moral identity, the presence of a moral star is negatively related to their felt moral responsibility and prosocial behavior. We found support for our hypotheses across an experiment and a multi-wave and multi-source field study. Taken together, our findings call for closer attention to the recognition of moral stars, as well as their potential unintended negative impact on teams and organizations.

以往关于明星员工的研究大多聚焦于绩效明星，却忽略了对道德明星的研究。事实上，道德明星对组织和社会都具有重要影响。因此，我们提出了道德明星的概念，并基于自我分类理论探讨了组织中存在道德明星对其他成员亲社会行为的双刃剑效应。道德明星是指那些长期以来相比他人做了更多道德行为的员工（不是领导），并在团队中以道德典范闻名。我们通过一项实验研究和一项多时间点、多来源的实证研究发现，对于道德认同高的员工，道德明星的存在能够激发他们的道德责任感以及进一步的亲社会行为。相反，对于道德认同低的员工，道德明星的存在反而与其感知到的道德责任及亲社会行为负向相关。我们呼吁学者关注对道德明星的认可研究，同时也要注意他们对团队和组织带来的潜在负面影响。