Structural relationships of high-performance work systems and unethical pro-organizational behaviors and the multiple mediating role of moral identity and psychological ownership

Unethical pro-organizational behavior is one of the factors in the development of any organization. These are behaviors that violate accepted social and moral standards. Research evidence shows that the unethical behavior of employees is increasing from day to day, and the behavior of managers, and supervisors and the domination of an inhuman atmosphere in the organization can provide the basis for the occurrence of unethical behavior on the part of employees.

The aim of this study was to investigate the structural relationships between high-performance work systems and immoral Unethical pro-organizational behavior in the mediating role of multiple moral identities and psychological ownership.

This study is a correlation study that was performed by structural equation modeling with partial least squares approach. The statistical population was the staff of the Ministry of Sports and Youth, from which 324 people were selected as the available research sample. The measurement tool of Aquino and Reed Moral Identity Questionnaire (2002); High-performance work systems Zachartos (2005) and the immoral meta-organizational behaviors of Amphos et al. (2010) were the research variables. The validity of the instruments was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. The collected data were analyzed using the partial least squares method.

The findings of the research showed that the factor loading obtained between the predictor variables and the grand criterion was obtained from 0.4. Also, the results of a t-value greater than 1.96 were obtained. The GOF index in this model was 0.454, which indicated the strong fit of the structural equation model. The result of the Sobel test 9.45 and 10.54 confirmed the mediating role of moral identity and psychological model, respectively.

Based on the results obtained in this study, managers should pay special attention to high-performance work systems to guide the behavior of employees in the organization. Also, managers should take steps to control the extra-organizational behaviors of their employees by paying attention to the structures of psychological ownership and moral identity.