"If Only My Coworker Was More Ethical": When Ethical and Performance Comparisons Lead to Negative Emotions, Social Undermining, and Ostracism

• Published in: Journal of business ethics Vol. 159; no. 2; pp. 567 - 586
• Main Authors: Quade, Matthew J., Greenbaum, Rebecca L., Mawritz, Mary B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.10.2019; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral responses; Between-subjects design; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Colleagues; Dyads; Education; Emotions; Employee attitude; Employees; Ethics; Hypotheses; Hypothesis testing; Management; Mixed methods research; Negative emotions; Original Paper; Ostracism; Philosophy; Quality of Life Research; Social comparison; Social dynamics; Ostracism; Social undermining; Behavioral ethics; Social comparison theory

Drawing on social comparison theory, we investigate employees' ethical and performance comparisons relative to a similar coworker and subsequent emotional and behavioral responses. We test our theoretically driven hypotheses across two studies. Study 1, a cross-sectional field study (N=310 empl...