20288: The Moral Rollercoaster: A Workweek Trajectory Perspective of Moral Identity and Work Behavior (session 25722)

Monday, July 28, 2025

12:00 - 13:30 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B4-m8

Session Type: Paper Session
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/AB7wpL

Author(s)

SD

Scott Dust

U. of Cincinnati
HL

Haiyang Liu

Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological U., Singapore, Singapore
LS

Laurens Bujold Steed

U. of Cincinnati, United States
YJ

Yueting Ji

Central U. of Finance and Economics, China
TJ

Tianxing Jin

Fudan School of Management, Fudan U., China
HG

Hongsong Guo

Central U. of Finance and Economics
XY

Xuanhong You

Renmin University of China, China

Two popular perspectives explain moral identity’s impact: the character perspective versus the social-cognitive one. Prior work typically selects one perspective or the other in guiding their research, which arbitrarily assigns one perspective as ideal. We sought to illustrate that both perspectives are simultaneously relevant, illustrating the need to understand how moral identity functions. Drawing from entrainment theory, we hypothesize that moral attentiveness and helping behavior will decline across the five-day workweek and that counterproductive behavior will increase across the five-day workweek. Aligning with the character perspective, we hypothesize that as moral identity increases there will be less of a decline in moral attentiveness, and in turn, less of a decline in helping behavior and less of an increase in counterproductive work behavior across the workweek. Aligning with the social-cognitive perspective, we hypothesize that said processes are only activated when perceived job meaningfulness is lower. Using two field studies, our hypotheses are generally supported.

view paper (if available)