Chen Qin, Shen Yifei, Zhang Li, Zhang Zhenduo, Zheng Junwei, Xiu Jing
School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 9;13:1052759. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1052759. eCollection 2022.
Psychological entitlement and felt obligation are two correlated but distinctive conceptions. Prior studies have mainly explored their influences on employees' (un)ethical behavior, respectively. Recently, several studies suggest the interactive impacts of psychological entitlement with felt obligation on individual behavioral choices. In consistency with these studies, the present study focuses on the influences of (in)congruences in psychological entitlement and felt obligation on employees' (un)ethical behavior.
A two-wave multi-source questionnaire survey is conducted to collect 202 matched questionnaires from full-time Chinese workers. The polynomial regression with response surface analysis is employed to test hypotheses.
The results indicate that: (1) employees have higher levels of work engagement and helping behavior but lower levels of unethical behavior when their psychological entitlement and felt obligation are balanced at higher levels rather than lower levels; (2) employees have higher levels of work engagement and helping behavior but lower levels of unethical behavior when they have higher levels of felt obligation but lower levels of psychological entitlement compared to those having lower levels of felt obligation but higher levels of psychological entitlement; and (3) work engagement mediates the relationship between (in)congruences in psychological entitlement and felt obligation and employees' helping behavior and unethical behavior.
This study provides a novel insight into the interactive influences of (in)congruence in psychological entitlement and felt obligation on employees' ethical behavioral choices.
心理特权感和感知义务是两个相关但不同的概念。先前的研究主要分别探讨了它们对员工（不）道德行为的影响。最近，一些研究表明心理特权感与感知义务对个体行为选择具有交互影响。与这些研究一致，本研究关注心理特权感与感知义务的（不）匹配对员工（不）道德行为的影响。
进行了一项两阶段多源问卷调查，从中国全职员工中收集了202份匹配的问卷。采用带有响应面分析的多项式回归来检验假设。
结果表明：（1）当员工的心理特权感和感知义务在较高水平而非较低水平上达到平衡时，他们的工作投入和助人行为水平较高，但不道德行为水平较低；（2）与感知义务水平较低但心理特权感水平较高的员工相比，当员工的感知义务水平较高但心理特权感水平较低时，他们的工作投入和助人行为水平较高，但不道德行为水平较低；（3）工作投入在心理特权感与感知义务的（不）匹配与员工的助人行为和不道德行为之间起中介作用。
本研究为心理特权感与感知义务的（不）匹配对员工道德行为选择的交互影响提供了新的见解。
