IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/busper/v9y2021i2p306-323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Formalisation Ensure Ethical Behaviour Among Teachers? The Mediating Role of Moral Efficacy

Author

Listed:
  • Malakkaran Johny Jino
  • Hima Elizabeth Mathew

Abstract

Formalisation emerges as an important aspect of organisational structure, especially in the wake of disruption of organisational routines. Also, there is a growing recognition that, in recent decades, higher educational institutions started adapting several business-like managerial practices into their system. In this context, the present study aims to determine the likely effect of organisational formalisation on ethical and unethical behaviour among teachers/faculty members. In addition, the study assesses the mediating mechanism of moral efficacy in the aforementioned relationships. A survey-based method was utilised to collect data from the 689 faculty members affiliated with different higher educational institutions in southern India. Structural equation modelling results revealed that formalisation has a significant positive relation with faculty member’s ethical behaviour. However, the study did not provide evidence for the predicted negative relationship between formalisation and unethical behaviour. Further, the results suggested that moral efficacy plays a significant mediating role in both these relations. Results reinforce the underlying theoretical mechanism of social cognitive theory that human function is a reciprocal determinism between person, his/her environment, and behaviour. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Malakkaran Johny Jino & Hima Elizabeth Mathew, 2021. "Can Formalisation Ensure Ethical Behaviour Among Teachers? The Mediating Role of Moral Efficacy," Business Perspectives and Research, , vol. 9(2), pages 306-323, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:busper:v:9:y:2021:i:2:p:306-323
    DOI: 10.1177/2278533720963554
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2278533720963554
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2278533720963554?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sung‐Choon Kang & Scott A. Snell, 2009. "Intellectual Capital Architectures and Ambidextrous Learning: A Framework for Human Resource Management," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 65-92, January.
    2. Dirk De Clercq & Dimo Dimov & Narongsak (Tek) Thongpapanl, 2013. "Organizational Social Capital, Formalization, and Internal Knowledge Sharing in Entrepreneurial Orientation Formation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(3), pages 505-537, May.
    3. Weihui Fu & Satish Deshpande & Xiao Zhao, 2011. "The Impact of Ethical Behavior and Facets of Job Satisfaction on Organizational Commitment of Chinese Employees," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(4), pages 537-543, December.
    4. Vlaar, P.W.L. & van den Bosch, F.A.J., 2006. "Coping with Problems of Understanding in Interorganizational Relationships: Using Formalization as a Means to make Sense," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2006-034-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    5. Monica Sharif & Terri Scandura, 2014. "Do Perceptions of Ethical Conduct Matter During Organizational Change? Ethical Leadership and Employee Involvement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 185-196, October.
    6. Ronald Fischer & Maria Cristina Ferreira & Nathalie Meurs & Kubilay Gok & Ding-Yu Jiang & Johnny R J Fontaine & Charles Harb & Jan Cieciuch & Mustapha Achoui & Ma Socorro D Mendoza & Arif Hassan & Don, 2019. "Does organizational formalization facilitate voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors? It depends on (national) uncertainty norms," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(1), pages 125-134, February.
    7. Mortimer, Gary & Fazal-e-Hasan, Syed Muhammad & Grimmer, Martin & Grimmer, Louise, 2020. "Explaining the impact of consumer religiosity, perceived risk and moral potency on purchase intentions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    8. Katsikea, Evangelia & Theodosiou, Marios & Perdikis, Nick & Kehagias, John, 2011. "The effects of organizational structure and job characteristics on export sales managers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 221-233, April.
    9. Gino, Francesca & Schweitzer, Maurice E. & Mead, Nicole L. & Ariely, Dan, 2011. "Unable to resist temptation: How self-control depletion promotes unethical behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 191-203, July.
    10. Schminke, Marshall & Cropanzano, Russell & Rupp, Deborah E., 2002. "Organization structure and fairness perceptions: The moderating effects of organizational level," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 881-905, September.
    11. Deborah Dougherty & Trudy Heller, 1994. "The Illegitimacy of Successful Product Innovation in Established Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 200-218, May.
    12. Nathan Eva & Daniel Prajogo & Brian Cooper, 2017. "The relationship between personal values, organizational formalization and employee work outcomes of compliance and innovation," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 274-287, May.
    13. Zhi Xing Xu & Hing Keung Ma, 2016. "How Can a Deontological Decision Lead to Moral Behavior? The Moderating Role of Moral Identity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 537-549, September.
    14. Cristina B Gibson & Patrick D Dunlop & John L Cordery, 2019. "Managing formalization to increase global team effectiveness and meaningfulness of work in multinational organizations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(6), pages 1021-1052, August.
    15. Douglas May & Matthew Luth & Catherine Schwoerer, 2014. "The Influence of Business Ethics Education on Moral Efficacy, Moral Meaningfulness, and Moral Courage: A Quasi-experimental Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 67-80, September.
    16. Ronald Fischer & Maria Cristina Ferreira & Nathalie Meurs & Kubilay Gok & Ding-Yu Jiang & Johnny R J Fontaine & Charles Harb & Jan Cieciuch & Mustapha Achoui & Ma Socorro D Mendoza & Arif Hassan & Don, 2019. "Correction to: Does organizational formalization facilitate voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors? It depends on (national) uncertainty norms," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(1), pages 135-136, February.
    17. Hannah, Sean T. & Avolio, Bruce J. & Walumbwa, Fred O., 2011. "Relationships between Authentic Leadership, Moral Courage, and Ethical and Pro-Social Behaviors," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 555-578, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohammed Khalifa Abdelsalam & Ibrahim Mohammed Massoud Egdair & Halima Begum & Diara Md. Jadi & Hussein-Elhakim Al Issa & Omar Saad Saleh Abrika & A. S. A. Ferdous Alam, 2021. "The Key Organizational Factors in Healthcare Waste Management Practices of Libyan Public Hospitals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Dirk De Clercq & Dimo Dimov & Narongsak (Tek) Thongpapanl, 2013. "Organizational Social Capital, Formalization, and Internal Knowledge Sharing in Entrepreneurial Orientation Formation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(3), pages 505-537, May.
    3. Sehoon Kim & Dae Seok Chai & Junhee Kim & Sewon Kim & Youngsoo Song, 2022. "Between Work Conditions and Job Outcomes: Testing a Nomological Network of Life Satisfaction," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 1407-1431, June.
    4. Ghulam Mustafa & Richard Glavee-Geo & Kjell Gronhaug & Hanan Saber Almazrouei, 2019. "Structural Impacts on Formation of Self-Efficacy and Its Performance Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-24, February.
    5. Yu Zhou & Guangjian Liu & Xiaoxi Chang & Ying Hong, 2021. "Top-down, bottom-up or outside-in? An examination of triadic mechanisms on firm innovation in Chinese firms," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(1), pages 131-162, February.
    6. Jin Cheng & Haiqing Bai & Xijuan Yang, 2019. "Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing: A Mediated Moderation Model," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 115-130, March.
    7. Muel Kaptein, 2017. "The Battle for Business Ethics: A Struggle Theory," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 343-361, August.
    8. Logan L Watts & Logan M Steele & Deanne N Den Hartog, 2020. "Uncertainty avoidance moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation: A meta-analysis," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(1), pages 138-145, February.
    9. Paniccia, Paola M.A. & Poggesi, Sara & Leoni, Luna, 2020. "The virtue of courage: From historical European roots to current management studies," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 547-554.
    10. Thomas Rockstuhl & Robert Eisenberger & Lynn M. Shore & James N. Kurtessis & Michael T. Ford & Louis C. Buffardi & Salar Mesdaghinia, 2020. "Perceived organizational support (POS) across 54 nations: A cross-cultural meta-analysis of POS effects," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(6), pages 933-962, August.
    11. Eva, Nathan & Sendjaya, Sen & Prajogo, Daniel & Madison, Karryna, 2021. "Does organizational structure render leadership unnecessary? Configurations of formalization and centralization as a substitute and neutralizer of servant leadership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 43-56.
    12. Debra R. Comer & Michael Schwartz, 2017. "Highlighting Moral Courage in the Business Ethics Course," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 703-723, December.
    13. Han, Shaojie & Su, Jingqin & Lyu, Yibo & Liu, Qing, 2022. "How do business incubators govern incubation relationships with different new ventures?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Henri A. Schildt & Markku V.J. Maula & Thomas Keil, 2005. "Explorative and Exploitative Learning from External Corporate Ventures," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 29(4), pages 493-515, July.
    15. Lu, Jinfeng & Dimov, Dimo, 2023. "A system dynamics modelling of entrepreneurship and growth within firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3).
    16. Hao Zhou & Xinyi Sheng & Yulin He & Xiaoye Qian, 2020. "Ethical Leadership as the Reliever of Frontline Service Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, February.
    17. Takuma Kimura & Mizuki Nishikawa, 2018. "Ethical Leadership and Its Cultural and Institutional Context: An Empirical Study in Japan," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 707-724, September.
    18. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2013. "Cheating in the workplace: An experimental study of the impact of bonuses and productivity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 120-134.
    19. Cécile Fonrouge & Cécile Ayerbe, 2005. "Les transitions entre innovations : études de cas et proposition d'une grille d'interprétation," Post-Print halshs-00696111, HAL.
    20. John M. de Figueiredo & Brian S. Silverman, 2017. "On the Genesis of Interfirm Relational Contracts," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(4), pages 234-245, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:busper:v:9:y:2021:i:2:p:306-323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.