RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POWER AND THE INTENTION TO BEHAVE IMMORALLY
Master thesis, Msc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 21, 2013
NYNKE HOFMEESTER Studentnumber: 1685694 Grote Beerstraat 308 9742 SL Groningen tel.: +31 (0)6-49816997
e-mail: n.hofmeester@student.rug.nl Supervisor/ university
Dr. J. Jordan / University of Groningen Second Assessor
Dr. F. Rink
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my supervisor Jennifer Jordan for providing me helpful feedback and information during the process of writing this thesis.
ABSTRACT
The current investigation examines how diversity in teams can influence the felt pressure from a team to behave immorally by a single team player in a powerful or non- powerful position. In an experimental setting, both power and diversity in a team were manipulated. Results indicated that low-powered people were more influenced by others, than high-powered people are in a homogenous team. Further, the powerless experienced more pressure to behave immorally in a homogenous than in a diverse team. Finally a moderated mediation analysis was conducted. Results showed that diversity within a team influenced how much pressure was felt from teammates, in such a way that individuals with low power in a homogenous team felt more pressure from the team and had therefore more intention to behave immorally than when they were in a diverse team. Future research directions and practical implications are discussed.
Key words: DIVERSITY, IMMORAL BEHAVIOR, POWER, PRESSURE, TEAMS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 4
2. THEORY 4
Effect of Power on the Intention to Behave Immorally 5 Effect of Diversity in Teams on the Relationship between Power and the Intention
to Behave Immorally 7
Effect of Diversity in Teams on Felt Pressure in the Relationship between Power
and the Intention to Behave Immorally 8
3. METHOD 10
3.1 Participants & Design 10
3.2 Procedure 10
3.3 Measures 11
3.4 Analysis 12
4. RESULTS 12
4.1 Manipulation Checks 12
4.2 Scenario Outcomes 13
4.3 Moderated Mediation 16
5. GENERAL DISCUSSION 18
5.1 Reflection of Results 18
5.2 Theoretical Implications 19
5.3 Limitations and Future Research Directions 20
5.4 Practical Implications 22
5.5 Conclusion 22
REFERENCES 23
APPENDICES 30
1. INTRODUCTION
“Ex-cyclist: Doping done so I could be a good teammate for Lance Armstrong,” a headline reported by the world newscaster, CNN (CNN, 2013). After the summer of 2012 it was announced that Lance Armstrong used doping all seven times he won the Tour de France.
However, not only did Armstrong dope but a lot of his teammates did as well. But why would they go along with a behavior that they knew could get them banned from cycling for life?
They were all familiar with the ethical anti-doping code (De Zwart, 2012) – nevertheless, they used the banned substances.
Lance Armstrong had organized a systematic doping program for his team (Carr, 2012). But what gave Lance Armstrong so much influence and power on his team to do something that is immoral (not to mention, illegal)? In this thesis, I propose that it was an interaction between the power of Armstrong (relative to his teammates) and the composition of the diversity of the cycling team that led these cyclists to be influenced by Armstrong’s immoral behavior. Thus, the question that I ask in this thesis is: How does the power that a person holds in a team and the diversity of the team influence a person’s likelihood of engaging in immoral behavior? And how do these people experience pressure to engage in immoral behavior. In the case of Armstrong, there was unquestionably pressure to engage in immoral behavior: Tyler Hamilton, one of the cyclists in Armstrong’s team, told CNN that,
“Armstrong wanted you to ride the best as you could in the biggest races.”
As this example illustrates, ethical scandals currently receive a lot of attention in the media. These scandals happen in multiple sectors of society, including, business, sports, religion and education (Kish-Gephart, Harrison, Klebe, & Treviño, 2010).
The statement of Tyler Hamilton showed the influence of Armstrong and the team in general. Wang, Meister, & Gray (2013) describe that social processes may affect an individual’s way of doing and thinking. Opinions and behaviors of others will shape the opinion and behavior of an individual (Wang et al., 2013).
2. THEORY
More and more research is performed on immoral behavior in order to understand why immoral behavior arises. Jones (1991) wrote that ethical issues emerge through the environment, which includes economic, social, cultural, and organizational factors. In the model of moral intensity, Jones (1991) proposes that the moral intensity of something influences whether individuals know that a moral issue is present, engage in moral judgment,
and have moral intentions and actions. These points are described in Rest’s (1986) theory of moral action.
Ethics can be seen as systematic thinking about the moral consequences of decisions (Johns & Saks, 2010). Immoral behavior is defined by different authors in different ways. The behavior that is contrary to moral norms, such as lying, cheating, and stealing, is seen as immoral (Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007). According to Jones (1991: 367), “an unethical decision is either illegal or morally unacceptable to the larger community.” The Oxford dictionary describes immoral behavior as behavior “not conforming to accepted standards of morality”.
On the basis of these different definitions and insights from the literature and in the view of this research, in the current research, I definite immoral behavior as: norms, actions and ways of acting, which are unacceptable for the team and the society.
News and literature report extensively about moral scandals and the influences that let them happen. Power often seems to be one of these influences, as power affects an individual’s style of moral thinking (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003). Social pressure is another influential variable (Singhapakdi, Vitell, & Kraft, 1996). Individuals’ morality is directly influenced by their team or peers (Larkin, 2000). Lastly, there is some suggestive evidence that team-based diversity might also influence moral behavior (e.g., O'Reilly, Caldwell, & Barnett, 1989).
Thus, this research will examine these potential influences on an individual’s immoral behavior. Specifically, it will examine how the intention to behave immorally is influenced by one’s power role and their diversity in the team, through felt pressure.
Effect of Power on the Intention to Behave Immorally
In several places in society, it is suggested that power undermines people’s sense of morality, which has a negative influence on their thoughts and behavior (Lammers, Stapel, &
Galinsky, 2010). An example here can be the excessive declarations of a Dutch municipality.
Very expensive dinners, drinks, presents for visits and receipts from the private sphere were declared by powerful state officials at the expense of the taxpayer. The total amount of these declarations between 2008-2011 amounted to 180,000 Euros (Valkhof, 2012; AD.nl Rotterdams Dagblad, 2013). Similarly, newspapers repeatedly report on government officials who have affairs concerning the use of public funds for private benefits (Lammers et al., 2010).
Overall, when people possess power, their own goals will be more important than the goals of others (Bargh & Williams, 2006). As the traditional judgment says: ‘‘power
corrupts’’ (Bargh et al., 2006; Kipnis, 1972). Thoughts and behavior are changed when people become more powerful (Jordan, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2011). In most situations where power plays a role, the powerful can more easily satisfy their own needs (Copeland, 1994).
The fact that power corrupts is a widespread belief in society and written down in the literature (Kipnis, 1972; Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). People with power have more self-interest, which influences the common good in a negative way (DeCelles, DeRue, Margolis, & Ceranice, 2012; Galinsky et al, 2003). However, this literature views the powerful as an individual identity. In a team perspective, this seems to work in a different way due to the influence from the team.
Different theories can be used to explain this phenomenon. As Wood and Bandura (1989) describe in their social cognitive theory, social influence is an important factor in predicting behaviors and attitudes. Besides this theory, Kelman’s (1958) social influence theory describes that social influence mechanisms will influence individuals because individuals identify with a group and as a result adopt their behaviors. According to Kelman’s theory (1958), changes in attitudes and actions through social influence are at different levels:
compliance, internalization, and identification. In this study, the focus is on the identification processes with team members and the behavior of the individuals. The identification processes may lead individuals to intentionally copy others’ observed behaviors in order to establish a good relationship with the group. So, when an individual is consciously or unconsciously internalizing others’ opinions, these assimilated opinions will determine the individual’s behavior. The social integration of an individual in a group examines the social influence from a group on an individual (Kelman, 1958). The social environment of an individual will influence the behavior (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). Ajzen (1991: 188) describes this as, “perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior.”
Superiors can affect an individual’s behavior through their power to reward and punish (French & Raven, 1959). It is possible that an individual will behave after the way it is commanded to him (Rich, 1997); however, individuals are also influenced by their peers – that is, individuals at the same hierarchical level as themselves (Boudreau & Robey, 2005). In the focus of this thesis, it will be expected that when peers show specific behavior, the individual will intend to show this behavior too. Indeed, Hogg and Terry (2000) describe that individuals often identify with their peers and therefore will behave in the same way.
Besides that, Wang et al. (2013) found that people higher in the hierarchy worked more independently than people lower in the hierarchy. They also noted that people lower in
the hierarchy were more susceptible to influence than are people higher in the hierarchy. The question is however; will this influence also make them behave immorally?
As Keltner et al. (2003) described, power is a basic force in teams. Personal power is described as the ability of ignoring others’ personal influence, to control one’s own outcomes and to be personally independent (Galinsky, Magge, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008;
Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2009). The dependency of an individual will be determined by their power to control or influence the behavior of others (Emerson, 1962). If this dependence on the other provides the basis for the power of the other, a powerful person can overcome the amount of pressure from the team (Emerson, 1962). The powerful one depends less on the resources of others than the other way around (Galinsky et al., 2003). This might also mean that the powerful are less subject to pressure from their teammates to behave immorally; they are more free to operate on their own wishes. The other way around, a person with low power depends more on his teammates and is more sensitive to team pressure. Concluding, when social pressure from the team exists to behave immorally, the powerful people in a team persist in their own behavior and the powerless are more susceptible to be influenced and go along with any unethical behavior.
According to Johns and Saks (2010) power can be seen as the capacity to influence others who are dependent. But, although power is mostly defined in literature in terms of influencing others (Anderson, & Berdahl, 2002; Friedkin, 2011; Yukl, 2013, Johns et al., 2010), in this research, the focus is on what happens when a powerful (or powerless) person is in a team that exerts pressure on him or her to behave immorally.
Given this evidence, I hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1: In team contexts that contains pressure to behave immorally, low-power, in contrast to high-power individuals, will have a greater intention to behave immorally.
Effect of Diversity in Teams on the Relationship between Power and the Intention to Behave Immorally
Due to social processes (Townsend, 2005), members of a group or community develop attitudes and behaviors that distinguish their group from other groups in norms and values (Bell & Hughes-Jones, 2008). However, these communities are more likely to have similar norms and behaviors if they are more cohesive. Cohesion is strengthened by the similarity of members in a team (Molleman, 2005).
Qian, Cao, and Takeuchi (2013: 110) define diversity as, “The degree to which team members differ with each other.” When the similarity of a team is high, the diversity within a team is low, and thus, the members of the team are like each other. Following Ashkanasy, Härtel and Dass (2002) the term diversity refers to any kind of individual difference that can exist between people who work together in an organization. Lau and Murninghan (1998) think of diversity in terms of differences. The term “diversity” is defined in my research as,
“any kind of difference that can exist between team members” (Rink, 2013, lecture 2:3).
Individuals in a diverse team will decrease communication frequency with their group members that will undermine team cohesion (O'Reilly et al., 1989). Thus diversity in a team decreases social contacts with team members, it reduces social integration and therefore an individual is not strongly influenced by his team members (Lau et al., 1998).
The diversity in a team and the accepted norms and values in a team have an impact on immoral behavior (Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Camerer, Fehr, Gintis, & McElreath, 2001). When an individual is in a team with people like him, the team will have more influence on his behavior than when his team is diverse. In diverse teams, people will be less dependent on the team (Emerson, 1962) and will not be guided by the vision of the group; they will follow their own view, and behave as they like (Lau et al., 1998).
When taking diversity into account in the earlier described relation between power and the intention to behave immorally, this leads to the following prediction: an individual with low power in a homogenous team who is pressured by the team to behave immoral, will sooner have the intention to behave immorally than when the team is diverse.
Given this evidence, I hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2: Power and diversity interact to affect immoral behavior such that the negative relationship between power and the intention to behave immorally is reduced in a diverse team.
Effect of Diversity in Teams on Felt Pressure in the Relationship between Power and the Intention to Behave Immorally
An important dimension from Jones’ (1991) theory on moral behavior is social pressure (Singhapakdi, et al., 1996). This dimension affects an individual’s perception of ethicality, as well as the intention to behave in an ethical way (Jordan, Diermeier, & Galinsky, 2012). People know when they are acting in an immoral way, but they convince themselves that they have no real choice and it comes through peer pressure or because “everyone does
it” (Anand, Ashfort, & Joshi, 2005). The norms within teams may directly influence an individual’s behavior (Duffy, Ganster, Shaw, Johnson, & Pagon, 2006) and implicitly and informally pressure to conform to social norms can influence behavior (Duffy, Scott, Shaw, Tepper, & Aquino, 2012). The group dynamic creates its own culture in a team where the norms may be different than in the whole organization or society (Anand et al., 2005). The psychological pressure to meet the requirements to behave in a specific way ensures that an individual will act that way and will fulfill the required task (Eisenberger & Aselage, 2009).
As shown in the above theory, in a homogenous team, the team will have more influence on individual’s behavior than in a highly diverse team (Emerson, 1962). The influence and therefore the perceived pressure to behave immoral from the team will be more intense. For a diverse team it is the other way around; here an individual will experience less pressure to behave the same way as the others (Barrick, Bradley, Kristof-Brown, & Colbert, 2007) and therefore will also feel less pressure from the team to behave immorally.
This leads to the following: diversity in the team has a conditional indirect effect on the felt pressure of an individual with low power, in such a way that an individual will feel more pressure from the team to behave immorally when working in a homogenous team, than in a diverse team, and therefore will have the intention to behave immorally. So team diversity influences whether or not an individual will feel pressure from the team to behave immorally and therefore pressure mediates the moderation relationship between power, diversity, and the intention to behave immoral. Given this evidence, I hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 3: The interaction between power and diversity on the intention to behave immorally will operate through felt pressure, such that when in a low-power position, people will feel greater pressure to behave immorally, especially when in a homogenous team.
FIGURE 1
Conceptual model of the effect of power and pressure on the influence of diversity in a team toward the intention to behave immorally.
3. METHOD
I manipulated both the power role a person had in a team and the diversity within a team. I examined how these variables influenced felt pressure and the intention to behave immorally. In addition, I examined their effect on felt guilt, responsibility, and if they would like to tell the specific occurrence to an important person.
3.1 Participants & Design
A total of 119 students of the Dutch HRM class at the University of Groningen participated in the online study (76 females and 43 males, all European ethnicity, mean age = 20.56 years old, SD = 1.31).
The participants were randomly assigned to a condition in a 2 (Power: high power vs.
low power) x 2 (Diversity: diverse team vs. homogenous team) between-subjects design. The participants were evenly distributed over the four conditions, ranging from 28 to 32 participants per condition.
3.2 Procedure
In the online task, the participants read that they were going to participate in a group task within their course and they had some influence on how this group would be comprised.
Nothing was told about the actual purpose of the study before the start of the online task, because of concerns that it would influence the data.
Power
Felt Pressure
Intention to Behave Immorally Diversity in a
Team
In the different scenarios, I manipulated the power role a person believed that he/she would hold within a team (high vs. low power), as well as how similar/different this person was compared to other members of the potential team (diverse vs. homogenous). I manipulated general diversity, no specific factors of diversity were examined. Furthermore, the role of social pressure was held constant across the scenarios. After presenting participants with their purported role in the team, they were presented with two moral dilemmas. An accompanying figure showed the participant his/her position and the amount of diversity there was in the team. The person was asked how likely it would be for him/her to engage in the behavior outlined in the hypothetical moral dilemma. I also asked them how much pressure, guilt, and responsibility they would feel when engaging in the immoral behavior. Finally, I asked if the person would tell the occurrence to an important person.
Intention to Behave Immorally
The intention to behave immorally was the dependent variable in this thesis. Two scenarios were used to measure the variable. In both scenarios, the first question measured the intention to behave immorally (See Appendix I). The first scenario was whether the participant would steal an exam. The second scenario was whether the participant would post an embarrassing video about a friend on Facebook. The intention to behave immorally was measured on a 6-point Likert scale, 1 = not at all to 6 = very much.
3.3 Measures Manipulation check
At the end of the experiment, participants completed a check of the power and diversity manipulations. To check whether the experimental conditions had effects on the participant’s experience of the amount of power and the amount of diversity in the team he/she felt, I measured how much perceived control they would have in the team (1 = not at all; 7 = a great deal) and how different from one another the participant thought he/she would be (1 = not at all; 7 = very much so).
Additional Items
A 6-point response scale was used for responding on the questions for all scenarios: 1
= not at all to 6 = very much. In addition to the item mention above, for each scenario, I asked participants: (1) If you did it, how guilty would you feel for your behavior? (2) How much pressure would you feel to do this? (3), If you did it, how responsible would you feel for your
behavior? (4) How likely would you be to tell what happened to an important person? The exact questions can be found in Appendix I.
Demographics
Lastly, participants completed several demographic items, including age and gender.
3.4 Analysis
The data of the study was analyzed using SPSS Statistics 20. The questions per scenario were analyzed individually with a univariate ANOVA test. When there was a significant interaction effect between Power x Diversity in the test, a planned contrast was performed to analyze if there was a significant difference between the Power conditions and/or the Diversity conditions. Lastly bootstrapping methods were used with Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes’s (2007) SPSS macro for moderated mediation. This method allowed for examining the significance of the conditional indirect effects of power at different values of the moderator variable, diversity.
4. RESULTS 4.1 Manipulation Checks
The experimental conditions influenced participants’ power and the amount of diversity that they experienced within the team. A univariate ANOVA showed that participants in the high-power condition (M = 5.20, SD = 0.92) experienced greater power than those in the low-power condition (M = 4.32, SD = 1.32), F(1,115) = 17.58, p < 0.001.
However, there was also a marginally-significant main effect of diversity on power perceptions, F(1,115) = 3.45, p = 0.07, such that in a homogeneous team (M = 4.96, SD = 1.06) people reported having greater power than in a diverse team (M = 4.57, SD = 1.33).
There was no interaction between power and diversity on perceptions of power, F(1,115)
=2.04, p = 0.16.
As expected, the analysis also showed that participants in the diverse condition (M = 4.87, SD = 1.21) experienced greater diversity than those in the homogenous condition (M = 3.54, SD = 1.19), F(1,115) = 37.87, p < 0.001. Contrary to expectations, however, results also showed a main effect of power on diversity, such that the powerful (M = 4.47, SD = 1.36) perceived more diversity in their team than the low-powered (M = 4.02, SD = 1.36), F(1,115)
= 4.50, p = 0.04. Power and diversity did not interact to affect perceptions of diversity,
F(1,115) = 0.23, p = 0.63. I discuss possible reasons for these unexpected results in the General Discussion.
4.2 Scenario Outcomes
All questions for the two scenarios were examined using a univariate ANOVA. I divide the results by each dependent variable (i.e., question) and within each dependent variable, by scenario.
“How likely would you be to do it?”
Stealing Scenario. For this scenario, there was no main effect of power, F(1,115) = 1.49, p = 0.25, which disconfirms Hypothesis 1, and no main effect of diversity, F(1,115) = 0.01, p = 0.93; however, there was a significant interaction between power and diversity, F(1,115) = 4.24, p = 0.04. To explore this interaction further, I used a planned contrast test to examine results within the diversity condition. Consistent with Hypothesis 2, which predicted that powerless people would be more likely than powerful people to be influenced by others in a homogenous team, I found a significant difference between the powerful and powerless people in a homogenous team, t(115) = 2.25, p = 0.03; however, I found no difference between the powerful and powerless people in the diverse team, t(115) = -0.61, p = 0.54. See Table 1 for means and standard deviations.
Facebook Scenario. For this scenario, there was no main effect of power, F(1,115) = 0.21, p = 0.63, no main effect of diversity, F(1,115) = 1.46, p = 0.23, and no interaction between power and diversity, F(1,115) = 0.26, p = 0.61. See Table 1 for exact means and standard deviations.
TABLE 1
“How likely would you be to do it?”
Powerful Powerless Powerful Powerless
Stealing Scenario
Stealing Scenario
Facebook Scenario
Facebook Scenario
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Diverse team 2.13 (1.48) 1.94 (1.11) 1.29 (0.82 ) 1.28 (0.52) Homogenous
team 1.86 (0.86) 2.43(1.43) 1.39 (0.83) 1.54 (1.00) Notes. Response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), M = mean, SD = standard deviation. N=119.
“How much pressure would you feel?”
Stealing Scenario. For this scenario, there were no significant results on feelings of pressure. There was also no main effect of power, F(1,115) = 0.001, p = 0.98, no main effect of diversity, F(1,115) = 0.002, p = 0.96, and no interaction between power and diversity, F(1,115) = 0.38, p = 0.54. See Table 2 for the descriptive statistics.
Facebook Scenario. For this scenario, there were no results on feelings of pressure;
there was no main effect of power, F(1,115) = 0.28, p = 0.60, no main effect of diversity, F(1,115) = 1.23, p = 0.27 and no interaction between power and diversity, F(1,115) = 0.92, p
= 0.34. See Table 2 for the descriptive statistics.
TABLE 2
“How much pressure would you feel?”
Powerful Powerless Powerful Powerless
Stealing Scenario,
Stealing Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Diverse team 4.84 (1.27) 4.97 (1.20) 4.97 (1.40) 4.88 (1.19 ) Homogenous
team 4.96 (1.23) 4.82 (1.09) 5.00 (1.25) 5.32 (0.72) Notes. Response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), M = mean, SD = standard deviation. N=119.
“How guilty would you feel?”
Stealing Scenario. For this scenario, although there was no main effect of power on feelings of guilt, F(1,115) = 0.61, p = 0.44, and no main effect of diversity on feelings of guilt, F(1,115) = 1.14, p = 0.24, the results showed a marginally-significant interaction between power and diversity on guilt, F(1,115) = 3.64, p = 0.06. To explore this interaction further, I used a planned contrast test to examine results within the diversity condition.
Consistent with the results for the “do it” variable above, I found a significant difference between the powerful and powerless people in a homogenous team, t(115) = -1.85, p = 0.07.
Meaning that powerful people feel more guilt in a homogenous team than the powerless.
However, I found no difference between powerful and powerless people in a diverse team, t(115) = 0.82, p = 0.41. Meaning that powerful and powerless people feel no difference in guilt in a diverse team. See Table 3 for the descriptive statistics.
Facebook Scenario. For this scenario, there was no main effect of power on feelings of guilt, F(1,115) = 1.45, p = 0.23, no main effect of diversity on feelings of guilt, F(1,115) =
1.01, p = 0.32, and no interaction between power and diversity on feelings of guilt, F(1,115) = 1.52, p = 0.22. See Table 3 for the descriptive statistics.
TABLE 3
“How guilty would you feel?”
Powerful Powerless Powerful Powerless
Stealing Scenario,
Stealing Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Diverse team 4.45 (1.52) 4.75(1.91) 5.13(1.18) 5.13 (0.94) Homogenous
team 4.64 (1.42) 3.93 (1.63) 4.61 (1.71) 5.18 (1.19) Notes. Response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), M = mean, SD = standard deviation. N=119.
“How responsible would you feel behaving this way?”
Stealing Scenario. For this scenario, although there was no interaction between power and diversity on feelings of responsibility, F(1,115) = 0.10, p = 0.76, the results showed a main effect of power on responsibility, F(1,115) = 4.46, p = 0.04. Specifically, when in high power, participants felt less responsibility (M = 2.88, SD = 1.52) than when in low power (M
= 3.47, SD = 1.45). There was also a main effect of diversity on responsibility, F(1,115) = 4.95, p = 0.03, such that people in a diverse team felt less responsible (M = 2.89, SD = 1.45) than those in a homogenous team (M = 3.50, SD = 1.61). See Table 4 for the descriptive statistics.
Facebook Scenario. For this scenario, there was no main effect of power, F(1,115) = 1.73, p = 0.19, no main effect of diversity, F(1,115) = 0.78, p = 0.38, and no main effect for the interaction between power and diversity, F(1,115) = 2.11, p = 0.15. See Table 4 for the descriptive statistics.
TABLE 4
“How responsible would you feel behaving this way?”
Powerful Powerless Powerful Powerless
Stealing scenario,
Stealing Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Diverse team 2.55 (1.31) 3.22 (1.52) 1.90 (1.19) 1.88 (1.01) Homogenous
team 3.25 (1.67) 3.75 (1.53) 1.79 (1.03) 2.36 (1.25) Notes. Response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), M = mean, SD = standard deviation. N=119.
“How likely would you be to tell what happened to an important person?”
Stealing Scenario. For this scenario, there was no main effect of power on telling the occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 0.00, p = 1.00, no main effect of diversity on telling the occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 0.16, p = 0.69, and no interaction between power and diversity on telling the occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 0.33, p = 0.56. See Table 5 for exact means and standard deviations.
Facebook Scenario. For this scenario, although there was no main effect of power on telling the occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 0.13, p = 0.72, and no interaction between power and diversity on telling the occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 1.02, p = 0.32. The results showed a main effect of diversity on when to tell the specific occurrence to an important person, F(1,115) = 6.59, p = 0.01, such that people in a diverse team were more likely to tell the occurrence to an important person (M = 4.71, SD = 1.22) than those in homogenous teams (M = 4.02, SD = 1.72). See Table 5 for the descriptive statistics.
TABLE 5
“How likely would you be to tell what happened to an important person?”
Powerful Powerless Powerful Powerless
Stealing Scenario,
Stealing Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
Facebook Scenario,
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Diverse team 2.42 (1.29) 2.56 (1.44) 4.90 (1.19) 4.53 1.24) Homogenous
team 2.46 (1.43) 2.32 (1.22 ) 3.93 (1.88) 4.11 (1.57) Notes. Response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), M = mean, SD = standard deviation. N=119.
4.3 Moderated Mediation
Next, I sought to examine whether pressure mediated the effect of the manipulation of power and diversity on immoral behavioral intentions. To note, I am only examining the results from the Stealing Scenario, since this was the only scenario that showed a significant interaction between power and diversity on the intention to behave immorally. Specifically, I predicted that the interaction between power and diversity on the intention to behave immorally would be mediated by felt pressure. Although the interaction did not affect felt pressure, I wished to examine if felt pressure mediated the results. To test this prediction I used the Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes’s (2007; model 2) SPSS bootstrapping macro for moderated mediation. This method allows for examining the significance of the conditional indirect effects of the mediator at different values of the moderator variable, diversity. Table 6 presents the results from these analyses.
First as expressed above, the power-diversity interaction was significant for the intention to behave immorally. However, the power-diversity interaction was not significant for felt pressure. The purported mediator, felt pressure, significantly predicted the intention to behave immorally in the hypothesized direction, B = 0.23, SE = 0.072, t(117) = 3.19, p = 0.002. As expressed above, not all of the requirements for moderated mediation were met.
Nevertheless I did a moderated mediation analysis for my own learning.
I then examined the conditional indirect effects of diversity in a team on individuals’
intention to behave immorally via pressure and their power role for people in a homogenous team (diversity = -1) and a diverse team (diversity = 1). I predicted that the felt pressure would be higher when in a homogenous team, leading people in low-power to be more likely to engage in immoral behavior. The results did not support this prediction (see Table 6). The conditional indirect effect of felt pressure when diversity (= -1) was low on immoral behavioral intentions was not significant, as the confidence interval included 0 (see Table 6).
Thus, in a homogenous team, there was no mediation of immoral behavior intentions by felt pressure.
I also predicted that in a diverse team, the felt pressure would be lower, leading people in low power to be less likely to engage in immoral behavior. The results supported this prediction; the conditional indirect effect of felt pressure when diversity (= 1) was high on immoral behavioral intentions was significant, as the confidence interval did not include 0.
Thus, there was mediation of power on immoral behavior intentions by felt pressure when in a diverse team (See Table 6). Means indicate that when in a diverse team, people feel less pressure, which reduces their intentions to behave immorally.
Taken together, these findings suggest that when in a diverse team, the lower felt pressure reduces people’s intentions to behavior immorally. But felt pressure does not explain immoral behavioral intentions in a homogeneous team.
5. GENERAL DISCUSSION 5.1 Reflection of Results
This study contributes to the ethical decision-making literature by offering a theoretical examination and empirical examination of the influence of diversity in teams to the felt pressure by an individual in the relationship between a person’s power role and the intention to behave immorally. Also, it shows how an individual acts or feels in a specific situation. In the present study, I manipulated power and diversity in an online experiment to examine the moderated mediation role of diversity on felt pressure in different power roles on the effect on the intention to behave immorally.
In the following paragraphs, the findings are presented, limitations, future research, implications for managers, and practical implications will be discussed, and finally there will be the conclusion.
TABLE 6
Regression Results for Indirect Effect of Power x Diversity in a Team via Felt Pressure on the Intention to Behave Immorally in Stealing Scenario.
Intention to Behave Immorally
Predictor
ß SE t P
Constant 1.29 0.26 4.96 0.00
Pressure 0.24 -0.07 3.17 0.002
Power 0.07 0.11 -0.06 0.529
Diversity 0.06 0.11 0.55 0.581
Power x Diversity 0.25 0.11 2.22 0.028
Diversity
Condition Bootstrapped 95% CI 95% CI Bootstrapped Bootstrapped Bootstrapped indirect
effect of
Lower Limit
Upper
Limit SE z p
felt pressure
Homogenous
Team (-1) -0.06 -0.21 -0.20 -0.06 -1.06 0.29
Diverse Team (+1) -0.08 0.03 -0.01 -0.08 -1.62 0.11 Notes. Bootstrapped re-samples = 10,000. CI = confidence interval.
First off, the two scenarios showed different effects, which suggest that the nature of the situation affects the effect of power and diversity on people’s immoral behavioral intentions. The Facebook scenario showed fewer results than the Stealing Scenario. For the Facebook scenario, I found that diversity affected if an occurrence was told to an important person, such that people in a diverse team were more likely than people in a homogenous team to tell the occurrence to an important person.
However, in the Stealing Scenario, I first off found that power affected people’s feelings of responsibility; powerful people felt less responsibility than powerless people. I also found that diversity affected people’s feelings of responsibility such that people in a diverse team felt less responsibility than people in a homogenous team. This may be because in a homogenous team people are similar to each other and therefore feel more responsible towards the group. In addition, I found that power and diversity interacted to affect people’s feelings of guilt in such a way that powerful people felt more guilt in a homogenous team than powerless people but this difference did not exist for those in a diverse team. Furthermore, power and diversity interacted to affect actual intentions to engage in immoral behavior.
Powerless people were more likely than powerful people to be influenced by others – but only when in a homogenous team. And this occurred through felt pressure.
As mentioned above, the results are not consistent between the scenarios but seem to depend on the context of the situation. In situations where the immoral behavior involves violating an authority figure power, diversity and the interaction of power and diversity have influence on people’s intention to behave immorally and their feelings of guilt and responsibility. But in situations where the immoral behavior involves harming a close friend, power, diversity and the interaction of power and diversity will have no direct influence on people’s behavior. Finally, I found that when in a diverse team, people feel less pressure, which reduces their intentions to behave immorally.
5.2 Theoretical Implications
The current study makes a theoretical contribution to the power, diversity and ethical decision-making literature. It provides additional knowledge to earlier studies (e.g., Anderson
& Galinsky, 2006; Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001; Smith, 2013) on the relationship between power and the intention to behave immorally, because it shows that diversity in a team can influence the felt pressure, which affects the intention to behave immorally.
Besides that, it shows under which circumstances (powerful or powerless individual, diverse or homogenous team) individuals feel more or less responsible or guilty when the intention is to behave immoral when the team exerts pressure to behave that way. It shows that in a homogenous team, an individual with low power will feel less guilt than an individual with high-power. Guilt is related to leadership (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012) and
“higher status individuals, such as managers, as opposed to lower status individuals (i.e., non- managers), are more likely to experience guilt” (Salvador, Folger, & Priesemuth, 2012: 128) which is in line with the results that a powerful individual (e.g., a leader) will feel guilt.
Besides that, the results show that people in a diverse team will feel less responsible than those in a homogenous team. This is surprising because it is contrary to existing theory and findings (Bear, Rahman, & Post, 2010). But when looking at responsibility and power, the results are more consistent with existing theory and findings; powerful people will feel less responsibility than powerless people.
Pearsall and Ellis (2010) are interested in factors influencing ethical decision-making in a team. The findings of this study showed that diversity in a team influences this process. It showed that the intention to behave immorally in the context of team pressure to behave immorally, occurs among low-powered people in a homogenous team. In this context, the lowest levels of intention to behave immoral are in a diverse team. This is consistent with research that recognizes that not all people engage in socially unacceptable behavior. In a more diverse team people will behave more how they want to behave themselves (Lau et al., 1998). Besides that, the present study showed the general effect of diversity and did not focus on specific items concerning diversity. Therefore it is possible that these results apply to all forms of diversity.
5.3 Limitations and Future Research Directions
There are several strengths and weaknesses of the current investigation. The experimental setup presents both the advantage of the controlled environment and the limitation of the self-reported behavioral intentions. In this online study, an individual was awarded to a power role in a homogenous or diverse team. This allows me to control the regulation of the experienced power role and diversity within the team. However, a weakness is the use of self-reports. Self-reports of how people said they would behave in a specific situation may indicate how they would indeed act; however, one’s intentions are often different from how they would actually behave. Self-reported intentions do not perfectly predict the behavior of a person (Chandon, Morwitz, & Reinartz, 2005). Therefore the results
of this study may not perfectly predict the real behavior people would actually show. One reason for this is because self-reports are often influenced by social desirability (Reynolds, 2008). Thus, in the current study, the respondents could know (or imagine they know) what the study was about, and therefore filled in socially-desirable answers. Future research should examine how power and diversity interact to affect actual immoral behavior.
Additionally, the sample of respondents was comprised of students of Human Resource Management. These students may not be completely representative of a normal team setting. This may have affected the results, such that students were unable to imagine what it would be like to be in specific power (particularly high-power) roles or to work in an actual work team. Future research is needed with other groups to answer this question. This research could be performed at companies in real teams by making immoral scenarios related to their job and asking them how they would behave.
Furthermore the effects on the results per scenario were inconsistent. For example, the stealing scenario showed more significant results than the Facebook scenario. This might have been due to the fact that the Facebook scenario was considered to be a less immoral scenario for students than the stealing scenario, whereby it was likely more clear that stealing the exam was not right. For example, it is clear that there would be an explicit punishment if caught stealing an exam at school. However, this would not be the case for sharing a video of a friend on Facebook. For this reason, future research should better equate the scenarios or vary them in very controlled ways.
A last limitation is that I did not look at how various individual differences moderated the relationship between power and diversity on the intention to behave immorally. Certain personality characteristics make it easier to act immorally (Tsang, 2002). So personality characteristics will influence to what extent a person has the intention to behave immorally.
For future research, the focus could be wider and on more mediators, like environment, organization, culture, etc. Also personality characteristics could be examined “to understand ethical decisions and behavior” (Majid, G., Yuan, L., Çayköylü, S., & Masud, 2013: 312), such as self-esteem (Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999) or moral identity (Aquino, &
Reed, 2002). Finally, the source of the diversity could be specified. Whereas the source of diversity in the current study remained ambiguous, future research could specifically manipulated diversity based in culture, ethnicity, gender, age, or seniority.
5.4 Practical Implications
The current results suggest several practical implications. First, as companies should behave within the boundaries of the law, they should make sure that their employees behave correctly. The results show that in a team people should not feel powerless, because in that situation, they will feel more pressured by others and when this pressure is to behave immorally, they will be more likely to act in this way. The results also show that a diverse team is advisable for organizations, because an individual in a diverse team will show less immoral behavior, regardless of whether the person is high or low in power. Therefore, these results would give insight for both human resource managers of companies, as well as for people who compose a political team (for example a proposed list of political associates).
5.5 Conclusion
The results from this study inform us about what happened in the Armstrong story.
From this study it appears that powerless people in a homogenous team will be more influenced than powerful people. Besides that, the results from this study inform us about the influence of diversity within a team. When a team is diverse, people feel less pressure from their teammates. When this pressure is to behave immorally, individuals from the team, powerful or powerless, will show fewer intentions to behave immorally.
In the case of the Armstrong story, the individual cyclists from the team were powerless compared to Lance Armstrong. And their cycling team was quite homogenous – similar lifestyles, similar background, etc. This thesis helps to explain why these people, who lacked power and were surrounded by individuals “just like themselves” may have given into pressure to act immorally.
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APPENDIX I Scenario A
The most important exam of the semester will be in two days. You are working with your group to study for the exam. A member of your group saw a copy of the exam lying on the table of your teacher. This group member (as well as a few others in the group) need a good mark for the exam in order to not have to pay high tuition fees for spending extra time in school. Thus, there is some pressure from your teammates for you to take the exam off the desk. The particular teammate who is asking you recently had a bike accident and is in a wheelchair while his leg is healing. Since your teammate helped you out a lot for an assignment of another course, he wants you to grab the exam out of the teacher's office because you are much more agile and quick than he would be in his wheelchair.
(1 = not at all, 6 = very much)
1. How likely would you be to take the exam off the teacher's office?
2. How much pressure would you feel to take the exam?
3. If you were to take the exam, how guilty would you feel?
4. If you were to take the exam, how responsible would you feel for your behavior?
5. How likely would you be to tell your teacher that the exam is lying on the table in plain sight?
Scenario B
You decide to go out with your group to celebrate the completion of a particularly difficult class assignment. During the evening one of your teammates gets very drunk. Unbeknownst to her, you have a Smartphone and are recording her inappropriate, lewd behavior. You and your teammates find this very funny and they are strongly telling you that you have to post the video on Facebook. You know that the contents of this video would be very embarrassing to her and could possibly harm her chances of getting a top internship this summer if one of her potential employers was to see the video.
(1 = not at all, 6 = very much)
1. How likely would it be that you would post the video on Facebook?
2. How much pressure would you feel to post the video on Facebook?
3. If you were to post it, how guilty would you feel?
4. If you would post it, how responsible would you feel for your behavior?
5. How likely would you be to tell your teammate about the video and to give it to her so that no one else could post it?
