Moral identity and social confrontation:
The moderating effect of rules
January 20, 2019
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business MSc Human Resource Management
Sarah Klein
Student number: S3571351 Jan van Galenstraat 5A 9726 HL Groningen s.klein.4@student.rug.nl
Supervisor:
ABSTRACT
Unethical behavior of employees can result in severe problems that are harmful for the organization. Peer sanctions play an important role in preventing and terminating deviant behavior in corporate contexts. This research focuses on the likelihood of an employee to confront a colleague after observing that he/she committed a wrongdoing. The purpose of the study was to examine if a person’s moral identity is related to the likelihood of engagement in social confrontation and how this relationship may be affected by the presence of rules in the workplace. The hypotheses were tested within a scenario-based vignette study amongst a sample of 163 participants. The findings provide support for the effect of moral identity on social confrontation, whereas rules appear to have no influence. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed.
1
INTRODUCTION
Ethical and unethical behaviors, such as theft or sabotage, occur within organizations by employees on a daily basis (Jex & Britt, 2008). A substantial body of research reveals that unethical behavior continues to be a concern in the workplace as it violates generally accepted moral norms and may involve high costs (Kaptein, 2010). Unethical behavior can considerably harm an organization, which may include decreases in organizational performance, financial losses, reputational damage, safety concerns, as well as a loss of customers (Askew et al., 2015).
Therefore, companies have a high interest in reducing the prevalence of such unethical actions (Hollinger & Clark, 1982). For this purpose, the regulation and sanctioning of behavior becomes especially important within organizations (Etzioni, 1967, 1975). It can be distinguished between formal or informal sanctions. The latter includes a range of reactions from gossip, ostracism, insults to physical assault as an attempt of individuals and groups to achieve compliance with norms (Corzine, Huff-Corzine & Marshall, 2014).
In this study social confrontation is regarded as one form of informal sanctions. It describes a particular kind of interaction between peers, which occurs when one person questions, accuses or reproaches another with a perceived rule violation (Newell & Stutman, 1983).
There is evidence that informal sanctions by one’s peers have a major impact on the regulation of deviant and unethical behaviors among individual workers (Mars, 1974; Gouldner, 1954; Hollander & Clark, 1982). They were found to be even more effective than formal sanctions by those in positions of authority (i.e. management) (Horning, 1970; Kraut, 1976; Anderson et al., 1977; Hollander & Clark, 1982). Given its relevance, the purpose of this study is to examine factors that may affect social confrontation between peers.
2 moral values as important to their sense of self, the more likely they are to engage in moral behavior (Arnold, 1993; Aquino & Reed, 2002). However, it is unclear how moral identity affects people’s reactions on perceived misconduct.
On the one hand, people who are high in moral identity might feel more bothered by unethical behavior of others and might want to correct it. Prior studies indicated that employees with a strong moral identity have been found to be more likely to blow the whistle on an observed wrongdoing than people who are low in moral identity (Proost et al., 2013). Since moral identity can predict many types of morally relevant behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002), one can assume that it also might play an important role with respect to the likelihood of engagement in social confrontation.
On the other hand, individuals with a high moral identity might be more concerned about the feelings or welfare of others and aim to protect them (Eisenberg, 2000). As social confrontation has the potential to cause harm or injury to another person (Hart, Atkins & Ford, 1998), people might feel inhibited to confront someone with his/her wrongdoing.
Research indicates that besides of individual characteristics, situational factors or the interaction of individual and organizational context may play an important role in order to explain ethical behavior (Adams, Tashchian & Shore, 2001; Trevino, 1986). As one of these organizational variables, the present study will further look at the presence of rules or corporate code of ethics. Rules have an influence on employee ethical behavior as well as perceptions of ethics in several ways (Adams et al., 2001). For example, previous studies discovered that established norms and codes of conduct, which support ethical behavior in an organization, may enhance employees to report an observed wrongdoing by their co-workers (King & Hermodson, 2000; Glazer & Glazer, 1989; Trevino & Victor, 1992).
3 Therefore, the present study focuses on how both variables moral identity and rules interact and aims to examine their effects on social confrontation. As follows, the research question is phrased: “How does a person’s moral identity and the presence of rules in the workplace affect
social confrontation of observed unethical behavior committed by a colleague?”.
By addressing social confrontation this research might provide new insights and contribute to the current knowledge about informal work sanctions. The factors that facilitate confrontational behavior have not been thoroughly investigated yet. Also, relatively little is known about the mechanisms through which moral identity influences moral action and commitment (Hardy & Carlo, 2005).
4
THEORY
Social confrontation
Within research exist a variety of definitions of confrontation. They have in common describing confrontation as “a communication process, in which problems are brought out into the open so that the parties can negotiate and maintain social order” (Newell & Stutman, 1991, p. 360). Newell & Stutman (1983) specified confrontation as an interaction, within which a confronter questions, accuses or reproaches a confrontee with a rule or norm violation.
While confrontation is very broad in its meaning, the term social confrontation has been introduced as one form or aspect of confrontation (Newell & Stutman, 1991). The adjective “social” allows for a clear distinction from self-confrontation, which has been already extensively studied within psychology (Newell & Stutman, 1988). Social confrontation is described as a particular kind of interaction, “which is initiated when one actor signals another actor that his or her behavior has violated (or is violating) a rule or expectation for appropriate conduct within the relationship or situation.” (Newell & Stutman, 1988, p. 271). In this sense, social confrontation is used to enforce compliance with social norms. Such norms are expected behaviors that are agreed upon by a social group.
The confronter is either directly stating or indirectly implying that the other person has violated a rule or norm. Because a direct and explicit confrontation could be perceived by the confrontee as a threatening move, confronters are often indirect by nonverbally displaying emotions, making use of hints, innuendos or more direct statements about feelings rather than accusing the other person explicitly (Newell, 1984).
5 prevention of the behavior (Newell & Stutman, 1988). Moreover, confrontation has been pointed out as the most common and effective method to resolve conflicts (Burke, 1970).
Previous research investigated facilitators and constraints on confrontational behavior. In a study by Newell & Stutman (1982), participants were requested to recall situations in which they had confronted someone as well as situations where they wanted to confront someone but decided not to confront (Newell & Stutman, 1982, 1989). According to the results, individuals may decide not to address a problem due to various concerns. For instance, they may fear to make the situation worse or to harm their relationship to the confrontee. Furthermore, people may vary between their sense of responsibility to act and the belief that someone else should take care of the situation. The confronter might have to deal with conflicting goals and may be forced to make a choice between concern for self, concern for other, or concern for the relationship (Newell & Stutman, 1989).
As mentioned above, people might feel inhibited to confront their colleagues for certain reasons, even though the behavior in question is intolerable for the confronter. At the same time, peer sanctions such as social confrontation play an important role in regulating deviance and unethical behavior among workers (Mars, 1974; Gouldner, 1954; Hollander & Clark, 1982). For this reason, it is important to gain knowledge about how to facilitate social confrontation. The present study aims to provide further information by which factors the decision to engage in social confrontation is influenced. In the following, the present study will look at moral identity and the presence of rules in the workplace as such factors.
Moral identity and ethical behavior
6 & Reed, 2002) and determines the extent to which individuals see moral values as important to their sense of self (Arnold, 1993; Aquino & Reed, 2002). Moral identity “acts as a self-regulatory mechanism that sets parameters for individual behavior and motivates specific action that is moral” (Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007, 1611; Blasi, 1984; Aquino & Reed, 2002). It involves behavioral tendencies what to do or not to do and can regulate discrepancies between social responsibilities and personal desires (Johnston et al., 2013).
There is evidence that moral identity stimulates the engagement in prosocial behaviors and abstain from antisocial behaviors (Hardy, Bean, & Olsen, 2015). Blasi (1983; cf. Erikson, 1964) explains the motivating force of moral identity by the consistency principle. Identity comes along with an individual’s desire to be true to him- or herself, which evokes behavior that is consistent with his or her moral beliefs (Damon & Hart, 1992; Hardy & Carlo, 2005). Thus, people with a strong moral identity are driven to behave in a moral manner (Colby & Damon, 1992; Oliner & Oliner, 1988).
For some people, moral identity is a core aspect in their self-definition, whereas others place less value in morality with respect to their daily activities and self-concept (Xu & Ma, 2016). Aquino and Reed (2002) divide moral identity into two dimensions, namely: symbolization and internalization. Internalization can be described as the importance of moral traits to an individual’s sense of self. Symbolization refers to the extent to which individuals try to present themselves as someone with moral traits (Aquino & Reed, 2002).
7 Moral identity has been found to predict many different types ofmorally relevant behavior (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Shao, Aquino & Freeman, 2008). For instance, research by Proost et al. (2013) has shown that employees with a high moral identity were more likely to blow the whistle on an observed wrongdoing than employees with low moral identity. According to these findings, there is a reason to believe that moral identity also has an effect on social confrontation.
As people who are high in moral identity are more likely to perceive or judge certain behaviors as immoral, it can be assumed that they may feel more bothered by a perceived rule or norm violation. Therefore, they may have stronger intentions to correct the situation by confronting the person with his/her misconduct.
However, the opposite effect can’t be excluded from the current state of knowledge. Confrontational behavior can be viewed as a face-threatening and harmful act, that may be as well regarded as immoral. As pointed out earlier in this study, people may decide not to confront, because they don’t want to make the situation worse or harm their relationship to the confrontee (Newell & Stutman, 1982, 1989). Moreover, individuals with a high moral identity might be more concerned about the feelings or welfare of others (Eisenberg, 2000), while social confrontation has the potential to cause harm or injury to another person (Hart, Atkins & Ford, 1998). Unlike whistleblowing, the confronter sacrifices anonymity when engaging in social confrontation (Roloff & Paulson, 2001). Yet it may be the case that the confronter does not want to be identified by the transgressor. To sum up, people may feel inhibited to confront another person with his/her wrongdoing due to various concerns.
8 their relationship and the welfare of others, may desire to protect the transgressor against more severe sanctions but still may want to correct the observed behavior. In this case, they may rather engage in social confrontation than report the behavior. Thus, the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 1: Moral identity positively predicts social confrontation.
Research indicates that besides of individual characteristics, situational factors or the interaction of individual and organizational context may play an important role in order to explain ethical behavior (Adams, Tashchian & Shore, 2001; Trevino, 1986; King & Hermodson, 2000). Whether high moral identifiers dare to confront someone may also depend on such factors as rules in the workplace.
Rules
As unethical actions in the workplace can considerably harm an organization, companies try to regulate such behavior by investing in compliance or ethics programs (Brenner, 1992; Paine, 1994; Schwartz, 2001). Primarily, these encompass a corporate document, typically referred to as a code of ethics, code of conduct, mission or value statement (Schwartz, 2001; Ethics Resource Center, 1990a, 1994; Murphy, 1988, 1989). According to McCabe, Trevino & Butterfield (1996, p. 461), a code of conduct can be defined as “a community's attempt to communicate its expectations and standards of ethical behavior” with regard to the responsibilities, obligations and duties of its members. Schwartz (2001, p. 248) further specifies a code of ethics as a “written, distinct, and formal document which consists of moral standards used to guide employee or corporate behavior”.
9 studies provide empirical support for the influence of honour codes on academic dishonesty and cheating among students (McCabe & Trevino, 1993; Mazar, Amir & Ariely, 2008). In a study of McCabe, Trevino & Butterfield (1996) the existence of a corporate code of ethics was associated with significantly lower levels of self-reported unethical behavior in the workplace. The results are supported by previous research of Hegarty & Sims (1979), which has shown that an organizational ethics policy decreased the prevalence of unethical decision making.
Ethic codes appear to have a “symbolic significance” as they signalize that the management places some value on ethical behavior. In this sense, they may raise the awareness or sensitivity to the importance of ethical behavior (Adams et al., 2001). Additionally, a study by Adams et al. (2001) pointed out that the presence of a code of ethics has an impact on key aspects of the corporate climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems. On the other hand, the absence of rules may indicate that compliance with ethics is not an important issue for that company (Trevino & Nelson, 1995; Adams et al., 2001).
Some authors discovered that established norms and codes of conduct, which support ethical behavior in an organization may enhance employees to report an observed wrongdoing by their co-workers (King & Hermodson, 2000; Glazer & Glazer, 1989; Trevino & Victor, 1992). It has been found that when an established code of conduct made peer reporting the responsibility of group members, people were more inclined to engage in that kind of behavior (Trevino & Victor, 1992). Based on these research findings, rules may also exert an effect on social confrontation.
10 the provision of rules may help to reduce ambiguity by giving information upon which behavior can be judged. Consequently, employees may be more likely to confront someone with an instance of questionable behavior than in the absence of rules. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The presence of rules positively predicts social confrontation.
Furthermore, rules may form the condition through which moral identity exerts an effect on social confrontation. It was argued that high moral identifiers are more likely to disapprove of unethical behavior and that they have stronger intentions to confront someone with misconduct in order to correct the situation. At the same time, they may also be more concerned about their relationship and don’t want to cause harm to other people. Therefore, they may feel inhibited to confront someone with an observed wrongdoing, even though they value the behavior as highly immoral.
However, if rules confirm employees in their own moral beliefs, they may feel legitimized and supported in their intention to confront someone. By referring to an established code of conduct, employees can make the confrontation less personal as they do not have to take responsibility for judging the behavior as unethical. In this way, the presence of rules may indicate encouragement by the company and eliminate concerns that people have regarding their relationships. Thus, employees that perceive institutional support and feel backed-up in their moral decisions, might be more inclined to confront others with an observed wrongdoing than they would in the absence of rules. In conclusion, the following hypothesis is stated:
Hypothesis 3: The effect of moral identity on social confrontation increases when rules are
11
METHODS
Research design and sample
The conceptual model and the underlying hypotheses were tested in an experimental vignette study and conducted in an online survey. The presence of rules (yes or no) was manipulated and participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. At the end of the questionnaire, the likelihood that participants would engage in social confrontation was measured.
The survey was published online on Mechanical Turk (MTurk). In total 163 participants were included in this study (60% male, 40% female). 74,2% of the sample has specified to be employed full time. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (no-rule = 83, (no-rule condition = 80).
Procedure
First, some demographic questions such as participants’ age, gender and educational background were asked. Secondly, the independent variable moral identity was measured. After the presentation of some filler items, all participants read a short scenario, which placed them in a position of observing unethical behavior of a colleague. In this scenario, the presence of a rule was manipulated. Lastly, the dependent variable social confrontation and some additional exploratory variables were measured. The survey finished with a manipulation check question.
Measures Attention Check
12 participants prefer to do in their spare time. In order to demonstrate that the participants were reading the description, they were requested to ignore the question and write an ‘x’ in the open text box belonging to the ‘none of the above’ option. If a participant did not do so, this entailed that he/she failed the attention check.
Independent variable measures
Moral identity. To measure the participants’ moral identity this study used a self-report
measure of Aquino and Reed (2002), in which respondents were presented nine moral traits (caring, compassionate, fair, friendly, generous, hardworking, helpful, honest, kind). They were asked to respond to a total of 10 statements on two dimensions: Five statements regarding the importance of those traits to who they are as a person (internalization) as well as to five statements regarding the extent to which they try to present a person with these traits (symbolization). Moral identity was assessed using a 7- point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 7 = strongly agree).
However, previous research pointed out that symbolization is more about self-presentation concerns than moral concerns (Hardy, Bean & Olsen, 2014). Moreover, internalization is theoretically more consistent with the principle of moral motivation (Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007), and thus it is expected to be a stronger predictor of moral behavior. Therefore, only the data concerning the internalization dimension (α = .79) was considered in the present study.
Filler items
13 Scenario and manipulation of the rule
Participants were asked to fill in the name of a colleague with whom they work closely. This one was automatically inserted within the description of the case as well as in the remaining questions of the survey. Then, all participants received the following scenario: “Imagine you are working in the HR department of a medium-sized company. Recently, this
organization was looking for a new Head of Finance. For this purpose, both your colleague [name] and yourself have been chosen as members of the personnel selection committee. In a team with four other colleagues, both of you are responsible for reviewing applications, organizing and coordinating job interviews.”
In the rule condition, participants received the following rule: “Your company has a code
of conduct. This code of conduct says that conflicts of interest and circumstances that reasonably present the appearance of a conflict of interest should be avoided. A conflict of interest arises when you are in a situation in which you have competing loyalties. And when these competing loyalties interfere with objective decision making or can result in any behavior that might be disadvantageous for the company. Below some examples will be given to illustrate what a conflict of interest is. Examples of conflicts of interest:
An employee works part-time in the evening for a company that makes a product that
competes with the products of his full-time employer.
A purchasing agent accepts trips and gifts from a vendor and then selects the vendor's
products for purchase by the company.”
Participants of both conditions then continued with the scenario as follows: “When you are
14 Dependent variable measures
Social confrontation. To measure whether the participants would confront his/her
co-worker with the observed wrongdoing, two questions were included. First, the participants received an open question, in which they were asked to describe their reaction to the described behavior in their own words: “In the case just described, what would you do (if anything)?
Please describe as well as you can.” All responses were coded according to 7 categories:
0 = no answer 1 = do nothing
2 = subtle social confrontation 3 = clear social confrontation
4 = report the behavior to the selection committee, supervisor or another higher authority 5 = ask someone else for advice without mentioning the colleague’s name
6 = unclear answer or answer that is beside the point
The coding was carried out by the researcher and an independent research assistant. The interrater agreement was .82. A third party was involved to make a decision on all divergent codings. Afterwards, the variable was dummy coded as 0 = no social confrontation and 1 = social confrontation. Only responses that belonged to the initial category 2 (= subtle social confrontation) and 3 (= clear social confrontation) were regarded as social confrontation, whereas the category 1 (= do nothing) was coded as no social confrontation. All other categories were processed as missing values.
In a second question, the participants were asked to choose from four options within a multiple-choice format: “How would you react towards [name] regarding the fact that (s)he is
involved in the selection procedure while knowing one of the candidates personally?” The
15 o Not at all, I would not mention this and not interfere.
o I would try to make subtle hints to [name] in the hope that (s)he would become aware
of the situation being problematic and in the hope that (s)he will do something about it. If (s)he does not act on my hints, then I will leave it like this and not mention it anymore.
o I would first try to make subtle hints to [name] in the hope that (s)he would become
aware of the situation being problematic and in the hope that (s)he will do something about it. If (s)he does not act on my hints, then I will make explicitly clear that the situation is problematic and that (s)he should do something about it.
o I would talk to [name] and make explicitly clear that the situation is problematic and
that (s)he should do something about it.
Manipulation Check
To test if the manipulation of the rules was successful, one manipulation check question was added at the end of the survey. Participants had to respond to the statement “In the situation
described there was a rule against conflicts of interests” on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly
disagree”, 7 = strongly agree).
Exploratory variables
Relationship concerns. This variable measured possible concerns regarding the
relationship that may inhibit someone to confront. The measure relied on a single item “I would
try not to harm the relationship” assessed on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 7
= strongly agree).
Protective intentions. In addition to concerns regarding the relationship, people may also
feel inhibited to confront, because they care about the well-being of others and want to protect them by avoiding conflicting or uncomfortable situations. This was tested based on two items
16
conflicts” (α = .81) assessed on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 7 = strongly
agree).
Moral disapproval. This variable represented by seven statements (α = .87) measured the
participants’ attitude towards the described behavior and the extent to which they perceived it as immoral or harmful to the organization. The statements were phrased as follows: “Being in
a selection committee when one of the job candidates is a close friend (and not mentioning this)...
o …is immoral
o …can’t be justified
o …is not social towards the organization
o …can harm the organization
o …is something I don’t object to (R)
o …is something I morally disapprove of
o …isn’t a big deal” (R)
Moral disapproval was scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 7 = strongly agree). The items 5 and 7 were reverse scored.
Institutional support. Institutional support measured the extent to which participants felt
legitimized and supported in their behavior by the company. Seven items (α = .92), as listed below, were scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 7 = strongly agree):
o Confronting [name] with his/her behavior is in line with the rules of the company o I would feel supported by the rules of the organization when confronting [name] o The rules of my organization give me the feeling that confronting [name] with his/her
behavior is legitimate
17 o I feel that the top management of the organization would want me to confront [name]
with his/her behavior
o I feel protected by the organization in case of a conflict with [name] about this issue
RESULTS
Attention Check
158 participants (97,2%) passed the attention check as expected. I choose to maintain 4 of the participants who failed the attention check because there were no signs of deflections in their further answers. However, one participant was excluded based on the attention check in combination with a divergent response later in this study. Within an open question, the participants were asked to describe their reaction towards the rule-breaking behavior. The answer of the participant excluded was beside the topic and not even related to the scenario.
Manipulation Check
An independent samples t-test on the manipulation check showed a significant difference between the two conditions rule vs. no-rule. People in the rule condition were more aware of the presence of the rule (M = 6.29, SD = .96, N = 80) than people in the no-rule condition (M = 4.25, SD = 1.68, N = 83); t (161) = -9.42, p < .001.
Correlations
18 format. Moreover, it was expected that rules exert an effect on social confrontation. As can be seen in the table, there are no significant correlations for the condition (no-rule vs. rule). Therefore, hypothesis 2 is rejected.
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
1. Concern about relationship1 5.26 1.48
2. Protective intentions2 4.89 1.53 .51**
3. Institutional Support 5.14 1.24 .10 -.14
4. Moral disapproval 4.25 1.38 -.14 -.27** .49**
5. Moral Identity3 5.82 1.12 .23** .10 .24** .07
6. Condition (no-rule vs. rule)4 1.49 .5 .13 .09 .15 .04 .14
7. Social Confrontation – open 5 .48 .5 -.05 -.45** .51** .45** .19* .11
8. Social Confrontation - choice 2.46 1.23 -.13 -.42** .49** .43** .14 .12 .78**
Table 1. Correlations, means and standard deviations of variables.
** Correlation significant at the .01 level * Correlation significant at the .05 level
1 Item: “I would try not to harm our relationship”
2 Items: „I would try not to bring [name] in an uncomfortable situation” and “I would try to avoid conflicts” 3 In this correlation table, only the results for the internalization subscale of moral identity are presented 4 The condition variable was coded as No-rule = 1, and Rule = 2
19 Regression analysis
Hypothesis 3 suggested a moderating effect of rules on the relation between moral identity and social confrontation. To test this, first, a binomial logistic regression analysis was conducted. The dichotomous variable of social confrontation (open) was used as dependent variable, while moral identity (internalization), the condition (no-rule vs. rule) as well as the interaction term (moral identity*rule) were considered as covariates. All variables were standardized before the analyses.
The model was statistically significant, χ2(3) = 8.42, p < .05. It explained 8.1% (Nagelkerke R2) of the variance in social confrontation and correctly classified 61.5% of cases. As shown in Table 2, the results provide support for the effect of moral identity on social confrontation (hypothesis 1). However, no main effect or interaction of the rule was found.
B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)
MI Internalization .411 .18 5.37 1 .02 1.51
Rule -.51 .36 2.01 1 .16 .60
Interaction (MI * Rule) .10 .20 .26 1 .61 1.11
Constant -2.07 1.09 3.62 1 .06 .13
Table 2. Logistic Regression analysis, DV: Social confrontation – open
20
Model B Std. Error β t Sig.
Constant 2.2 .34 6.57 .000
MI Internalization .17 .10 .13 1.65 .10
Rule .12 .10 .10 1.25 .22
Interaction (MI * Rule) .07 .10 .05 .70 .50
Table 3. Multiple Regression analysis, DV: Social confrontation – choice
Additional analyses
It was suggested that rules evoke social confrontation through institutional support. Against expectation, the condition (no-rule vs. rule) did not affect institutional support. Nevertheless, there is a significant correlation between institutional support and both moral identity and social confrontation. The relationship between those variables was tested with the PROCESS macro mediation analysis model 4 of Hayes (2013).
Both predictor variables were standardized before the analysis. The regression of moral identity (internalization) on the mediator institutional support was significant, b = .24, t(120)= 2.41, p = .02. The next step of analysis showed that institutional support, controlling for moral identity (internalization), was a significant predictor on social confrontation (open), b = 1.28, z = 4.69, p < .001. However, controlling for institutional support, moral identity did no longer predict social confrontation (open), b = .19, z = .85, p = .39. The whole model was statistically significant, F(1, 120) = 5.80, p = .02, and explained 36% (Nagelkerke R2) of the variance in social confrontation. Additionally, a Sobel test was conducted to test whether the indirect effect is significantly different from zero. It revealed that the relationship between moral identity (internalization) and social confrontation (open) is fully mediated by institutional support, Z = 2.11, p = .04, 2 = .31. The conceptual model with regression coefficients is displayed in Figure
21
Figure 1. Mediation model
** Correlation significant at the .01 level * Correlation significant at the .05 level
Additionally, it was argued that high moral identifiers are more likely to value certain behaviors as immoral and therefore, they would be more inclined to confront someone with his/her misconduct. In fact, it has been found that moral disapproval correlates with social confrontation, but apparently, there is no relation to moral identity.
Similarly, it was assumed that high moral identifiers may feel inhibited to confront due to various concerns. It was found that concern for relationship correlates with moral identity but did not exert an effect on social confrontation. The opposite was found for protective intentions. The desire to protect the transgressor and to avoid conflicts is negatively correlated with social confrontation, but it does not relate to moral identity.
22 DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to examine factors that may affect social confrontation among peers - or more specifically - to investigate the effect of moral identity and the presence of rules in the workplace on the likelihood of social confrontation. It was hypothesized that moral identity positively predicts social confrontation. The results revealed a positive correlation between moral identity (internalization) and one of the social confrontation variables. No significant effect has been found on the social confrontation variable, that was measured within a multiple-choice format. Thus, the first hypothesis is only partially supported. However, social confrontation assessed by the open question is likely to be the more valid measure. Compared to the multiple-choice measure of social confrontation, it can be regarded as more informative since the participants were not influenced by pre-defined options. Consequently, they had to think about their actual behavior, which in turn might have led to more genuine answers. It can, therefore, be assumed that participants, who described their reaction as social confrontation would indeed confront in a real-world situation similar to the scenario.
Second, it was hypothesized that rules exert a positive effect on social confrontation. This was not supported since there were no significant correlations with the rule. Moreover, Hypothesis 3 stated that the effect of moral identity on social confrontation increases when rules are present in the workplace. This could not be confirmed in the present study as no interaction was found between rules and moral identity. Based on the findings rules doesn’t seem to moderate the effect of moral identity on social confrontation.
23 the organization. As part of this relationship, they might rather feel inclined to follow rules set by the company. The hypothetical situation in this study could have failed to represent this kind of employee-employer relationship resulting in a lower sense of commitment regarding the rules, which in turn could have affected their intentions to confront. Under limitations, a more elaborate consideration of the study design is made.
Furthermore, it was reasoned that rules may evoke social confrontation through institutional support. Against this expectation, the rule did not induce institutional support. However, high moral identifiers appeared more likely to feel supported in their behavior by the company. A mediation analysis confirmed an indirect effect by institutional support on the relationship between moral identity and social confrontation. This could be possibly influenced by the organization, in which the participants actually work. Some items contained the expression “my organization”, therefore participants might have based their answers on the extent to which they felt supported by their real organization instead of referring to the presented scenario and the rule given.
It can be further assumed that people might choose their organizations in line with their self-concept. According to social identity theory, people search for groups that share similar features and confirm them in their own beliefs. This being the case, high moral identifiers might be more likely to work in organizations, in which they feel supported in their moral values. In this sense, organizational membership may be part of an individual’s (moral) identity and lead to activities that are congruent with the identity (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), such as social confrontation.
24 Atkins & Ford, 1998), for which reason, people might decide not to confront someone. Relational concerns, as well as protective intentions, were measured in the present study. However, none of these variables could be identified to influence the relationship between moral identity on social confrontation. High moral identifiers, indeed, appeared to be more concerned about their relationship, but this did not affect social confrontation. Moreover, moral identity did not evoke protective intentions, while they were correlated with social confrontation.
Theoretical contributions
From a broader perspective, this study provides new insights in the domain of informal peer sanctions within corporate contexts. The results of this study contribute to the existing body of literature as the factors that may (or may not) facilitate social confrontation were not thoroughly investigated before. Moral identity was known to predict many types of morally relevant behavior such as whistleblowing (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Proost et al., 2013). The study findings extend this knowledge base by the variable of social confrontation.
25 Limitations
As a strength of this research, the generalizability of the study can be pointed out. The sample was quite heterogeneous, and participants possessed relevant work experience, which contributed to the external validity of the experiment. However, the coding of the open question of social confrontation produced many missing cases for the answers that could not be coded into one of the categories. Thereby the sample size was reduced to 122, which could have diminished the accuracy and statistical power of the present study.
Moreover, it should be noted that the sample consisted solely of American participants, therefore cultural differences should be considered when interpreting and comparing the findings of this study. Several factors including cultural norms, environmental and structural variables, as well as demographic and economic factors, can lead to meaningful differences in moral judgments and behavior across cultures (Graham, Meindl, Beall, Johnson & Zhang, 2016). For instance, collectivist cultures tend to rather consider additional contextual information (e.g. their responsibility (or duty) to act) when forming judgments compared to individualist cultures (Graham et al., 2016; Gold, Colman & Pulford, 2014). For this reason, further research could test the model among different populations.
26 studies. However, when choosing a scenario-study one should present a choice of different scenarios, within different contexts or focus on one professional group.
CONCLUSION
27
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