From Citizenship Pressure to Pro-Group Unethical Behavior: The Dual-Stage Moderating Role of Self-Serving Political Will

Drawing upon social cognitive theory, our study proposes a dual-stage moderated mediation model that utilizes moral disengagement as the mediator and self-serving political will as the moderator to investigate whether, how, and when team-oriented citizenship pressure leads to pro-group unethical behavior. Data were collected through questionnaires from 527 Chinese employees in various industries. Amos and Process macro were used to test the model’s fit and hypotheses, respectively. The results showed that citizenship pressure has a positive effect on pro-group unethical behavior through moral disengagement. Moreover, self-serving political will is a positive moderator in both the first and second stages, as well as in the mediation effect. This study extends the related research field by linking citizenship pressure and political will with moral disengagement and pro-social unethical behavior, responding to some academic calls. When faced with team-oriented citizenship pressure, team members with high self-serving political will may become a sharp edge that stabs at other competing teams. Managers at the team and organizational levels can intervene in different ways depending on their constructive or destructive management goals.