The Effects of Supervisor Support and Status Loss On Employee Moral Disengagement and Unethical Pro-Supervisor Behavior

This project integrates findings from multiple streams of research to explore how employees' unethical responses may be affected by supervisor support and supervisor status loss. Compared to the effects of individual status loss, little is known about how supervisor status loss affects employees. Using an experimental study, we extend prior scholarship on unethical pro-supervisor behavior (UPSB) by demonstrating supervisor status loss as a novel moderator of the relationship between supervisor support to unethical behavior. Our results show that supervisor support and supervisor status loss have an interactive effect on employees' willingness to engage in pro-supervisor unethical behavior, mediated by employee moral disengagement. We found that when the supervisor experiences status loss, supervisor support increases employees’ moral disengagement, which in turn, motivates employees to conduct UPSB.