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A double-edged sword: when does identity threat affect unethical behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2019

Jinyi Zhou Open the ORCID record for Jinyi Zhou [Opens in a new window] ,
Jifang Dou  and
Xiaoye (May) Wang
Jinyi Zhou*
Affiliation:
Department of Business Administration, Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
Jifang Dou
Affiliation:
The PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, China and the Teaching Center for Writing and Communication, Tsinghua University, China
Xiaoye (May) Wang
Affiliation:
Department of Leadership and Organization Management, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jinyi@ustb.edu.cn
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Abstract

Although individuals have different kinds of defensive strategies towards identity threat, the relationship between identity threat and unethical behavior is still unclear. In the current study, according to identity threat and self-affirmation theory, we propose and test the role of publicness of identity threat in determining whether identity threat will lead to unethical behavior. One online experiment with 197 participants (mixed design) and one laboratory experiment with 86 participants (between-subject design) are used to test our hypotheses. Our findings reveal that when individuals' identity threat is from the public sphere, it will increase their unethical behavior, but when such a threat is from the private sphere, it will reduce their unethical behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords

identity threatunethical behaviorpublicnessself-affirmation

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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 29 , Issue 6 , November 2023 , pp. 1120 - 1138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019

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