Project I/O Psychology: OTB
Organisational Trojan-horse Behaviour
This project explores Organisational Trojan-horse Behavior (OTB), where seemingly altruistic actions in the workplace covertly harm the organization. It examines how guilt and the need for belonging influence the impact of OTB on job engagement, offering insights into the complex dynamics of workplace behavior.
Reserved Analysis (visible in PDF as below button):
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Quanittative: 3-staged paper-typed, questionnaire over 350 candidates
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Factor Analysis (Academic questionnaire building)
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Moderated Mediation Analysis
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Model Fitness & Moderated Mediation
Overview
This project page introduces the concept of Organizational Trojan-horse Behavior (OTB), which describes seemingly altruistic actions within a workplace that, despite their positive appearance, ultimately harm the organization. This behaviour contrasts with traditional views on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB). OTB occurs when employees engage in cooperative misbehaviours—such as covering up a colleague's wrongdoing—that benefit individuals but undermine organizational integrity. The study examines how guilt, stemming from such behaviours, influences job engagement and how the need for belonging moderates this relationship. The research underscores the complex dynamics of workplace behaviour, suggesting that while OTB may foster interpersonal bonds, it poses significant risks to organizational health. This project page introduces the nuanced understanding of extra-role behaviours and offers practical insights for managing such challenges in organizational settings.
For simplicity, the below context will reserve overcomplicated methodology and research execution details, and leave the essence of results and discussion to signify its real-world implication.
Theoretical Background & Hypothesis
An Alternative Conceptual Model:
Despite the attention toward current incompatibilities between theoretical knowledge and reality of people’s extra-role behaviour within an organisation (Sackett, Berry, Wiemann & Laczo, 2006; Robinson & Binnett, 1995; Dalal, 2005; Castille et al.,2018), there is yet study further dealt with the issue from the positive sides of behavioural presence. Therefore, in Figure 1 we proposed a conceptual model that bridges present theories and be inclusive of what may be unknown to come. In the basis of (1) the current favourable and unfavourable behavioural aspects (e.g. Rotundo & Sackett, 2002); (2) that OCBs and CWBs are not on one continuum but rather independent from each other (e.g. Sackett et al, 2006), and (3) that behaviour differentiated between its targets (e.g. Williams & Anderson, 1991; Spector, Fox, Penney, Bruursema, Goh & Kessler, 2006), along each dimension should be a spectrum which lies the level of favourability (or seriousness) toward each target.
Figure 1
According to the model, not only we can see the OCB, CWB, and the organisation-member-related unethical pro-organisational behaviour (UPB; which indicating the ethic-violating behaviour benefitting the organisation while harming the interests of related parties; Castille et al.,2018) posited, but it further renders an untouched field of behaviour (quadrant IV) in completing the description of people’s extra-role behaviour in the model. Representing organisation member’s direct altruistic behaviours that at the same time pose threat to organisation’s legitimate interest, we can here comprehend it as organisational Trojan-horse behaviour (OTB).
Organisational Trojan-horse Behaviour
As mentioned earlier, Trojan-horse behaviours can be ubiquitous in the workplace, but they also present to be rather inconspicuous. It can easily hide under our favourability judgement for it possesses a portion of both OCB and CWB’s characteristics. Similar behaviours can be helping colleagues deceiving supervisor during work or keeping secrets for colleagues’ intentional misconduct. In reality, managers and scholars often turn their focus on the presentation and misjudge those OTBs as OCBs, given their altruistic behaviour presences. Hence, to solve this puzzle, the main question about the way performing Trojan-horse behaviour affects individuals’ behaviour in an organisation then should be asked “how do OTB actors process such imbalance between the guilt and gains from the decision of action facing two conflicted interest parties, and potentially shifting own behaviours in response?”
We consider there to be more social intention as the answer to this should lay under the fundamental composition of the OTB relationship, which consists of the relationship between (1) OTB actor-organisation, and (2) OTB targeted colleague.
Born to be gregarious, humans show a rooted desire to form meaningful attachments with one another (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Hornsey & Jetten, 2004; Cropanzano et al., 2001). However, the need to preserve and function both relationships leads to conflicting interests between respective targets. Therefore, we regard the derivation and the strategy responding to it as the crucial determinant regarding the OTB actor’s behavioural outcome. Whilst the coping of such conflicts could be expected to cannibalise one’s total effort in work on the other end, we suggest it is the OTB actor’s guilt derived from transgressing the relationship with the organisation in order to fulfil needs in the relationship with colleagues that drives the OTB actor’s behaviour to maintain internal balance.
OTB-induced Guilt: A Bless or Bust in Adaptation?
Individuals regulate themselves according to mutual behavioural conventions like workplace regulations or informal rules to secure the trust and credibility; they tend to match their self-standard with the relationship counterpart if it is perceived as fair (Fuchs & Edwards, 2012; Tyler & Blader, 2003; Gagné & Deci, 2005). Hence, as OTB acts are in their nature indicating violation in such conventions in the relationship with organisation, by individual’s active self-evaluation through the concern of morality and justice, it prompts one to feel guilty, not only from breaching the rules (Bohns & Flynn, 2013) but also from gaining in the certain act (Krehbiel & Cropanzano, 2000). However, the overall major cause of such guilt should be traced back to the very transgression of relationship given the two-way affecting (organisaiton-colleague), transactional core of OTB. People tend to focus our attentions on the “soulds” rather than “should nots” in the evaluation of past incidents (Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010), and thus transgression in relationships is said to raise guilt whether it is voluntary or not, provided the premise obligation to remain cohesive in a relationship. Guilt is an adaptive emotion to preserve and strengthen social relationships: feeling responsible and constructive over the misdeed and the ability to do the alternative, it is inevitable such guilt will be induced from transgressing the relationship in performing OTBs (Baumeister, Stillwell & Heatherton, 1994).
However, if guilt is designed for us to adapt, it is then sensible to expect lesser guilt experienced along with the behavioural adaptation of OTB performance, pertaining the guilt itself is to prevent future negative feedback in behavioural change (Baumeister et al., 1994). Moreover, we believe it can even be more of content and enhancement to some. Two anticipatory beliefs: evaluating the past, and the susceptibility to punishment is said to together determine the direction of experiencing and resolving guilt (Caprara et al., 2001). Being complimentary to self’s attribution of responsibility pertaining such misdeed in the past event, the susceptibility to punishment encompasses the evaluation of the future. And therefore, the simultaneous by-product of personal gain in OTB’s transactional nature can actually be the decisive impetus determining how the guilt is experienced in a new compromised adaption level. That is, with lower susceptibility of punishment and the internal presence of personal gain and external presence of altruism, such guilt experienced should be lower than those with higher anticipated susceptibility of punishment.
Several aspects of enhancement can be applied to the OTB actors. The unethical yet altruistic presence bolsters the specific relationship with immediate reward or potential future reciprocity between the OTB actor and its target colleague (Tenbrunsel, 1998; Bersoff, 1999). From relationship’s quality point of view, engaging in OTB indicates the ability to cope with such sophisticated balance between relationship complex (e.g. Stephens, Heaphy & Dutton, 2012; Stephens, Heaphy, Carmeli, Spreitzer & Dutton, 2013). On the other hand, the sense of gaining from rule-violation also bear intrinsic motivations. A long-lasting self-satisfactory effect is found to be encouraged by the thrill of getting away with cheating the rules rather than self-select effect, or material rewards (Ruedy, Moore, Gino & Schweitzer, 2013). And people’s self-justification for own ethicality (honesty) further prompt one to committed on such behaviour (Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, & De Dreu, 2011) as morality only extend to where justification ends (p. 189). It explains the reality of why people often persist on such cheating behaviour regardless of limited rewards, or high economic cost along with it (Ruedy et al., 2013, P. 542).
This analysis confirmed the contradicted viewpoint for OTB actors’ sake, who at the same time will be caring about the guilt in the face of relationship transgression and all-rounded personal gain in performing OTB. Given guilt’s adaptation function, we should expect OTB actor to be less affected by the guilt elicited from relationship (OTB actor-organisation) transgression since the new OTB relationship (or the new pattern of behaviours of OTB) would be gradually accepted as new norms by the OTB actor. The adaptation drive is then shifted from guilt to personal incentive.
H1: OTB will be negatively related to an individual’s guilt derived from it.
Guilt and Job Engagement: A Compensation View
Such a self-conscious, emotional unpleasant state of guilt doesn’t contribute entirely to negative outcome, though. Apart from shame, guilt associates with proactive intention to the possible objection to one’s behaviour, circumstances, or intentions (Baumeister et al., 1994), and is said to serve functions of action control in order to detect the maladaptive behaviour in a relationship (Bohns & Flynn, 2013; Baumeister et al., 1994; Tracy & Robins, 2006). This relationship-induced guilt stimulates prosocial behaviour to become more helpful and compliant as it functions “to repair damage to a relationship arising from a transgression” (Baumeister et al., 1994, p.257).
Several empirical examinations also support the compensating view. In Covert, Tangney, Maddux, and Heleno’s (2003) study, guilt-proneness is better linked to the initiation and effectiveness of adjustment to interpersonal conflict. Later studies testing this idea in the workplace further found that not only guilt-prone individual enhances his/her work efforts and further justify itself by heightening affective commitment to the organisation (Flynn & Schaumberg, 2013), but by only making aware of one’s counternormative can the compensatory behaviour be elicited (Ilies et al., 2013). In this sense, pertaining OTB actor’s position to face the inevitable transgression on the relationship with the organisation, we could expect such relationship-induced guilt eventually facilitate further compensation back to the very relationship with the organisation, namely, through the behavioural outcome of personal job engagement. And because of the exclusivity and specificity of the guilt elicited in the self-organisation relationship, we could also see a potentially strong mediation effect such elicit guilt plays between performing OTB and job engagement.
H2: OTB-induced guilt will be positively related to individual’s job engagement.
H3: Guilt will mediate the relationship between OTB performance and job engagement.
Moderation role of OTB actor’s need for belonging
Following our inference of OTB actor’s social intention to determine one’s response to such guilt elicited, the present study posits the tendency of one’s need to belong then should play a crucial, but rather an instrumental role in affecting one’s intention toward the OTB act itself. People with higher need to belong not only possess higher tendency to cooperate in public dilemmas (De Cremer & Leonardelli, 2003), further, they were found to be more attentive and accurate in decoding complex social cues, however, only in those socially presenting performance rather than general cognitive problem-solving ones (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004). These findings of tendency how people act to adapt and fulfil personal need for belonging is consistent with present study’s assumption. In this sense, OTB actors with higher need to belong then can be expected to have a higher tendency to adapt to new behavioural relationship, and only in meeting self’s needs of inclusiveness.
As mentioned, the relationship factor in play represents both intrinsic and extrinsic incentives. And the urge of achieving and maintaining a certain level of social contacts is said to be stimulated by goal-directed activities (Baumeister & Leary, 1995); apart from intrinsic motives in pursuing relationship (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000), OTB actor may also pursue further extrinsic rewards (e.g., personal gift, or economic resources, etc.) through investing in particular OTB relationships, which process can often be seen emphasised in the benefit of pursuing “networking”, or “guanxi” in various cultural workplace settings (Chua, Morris & Ingram, 2009). Put it differently, here the need for belonging at its presence possess further meanings for OTB actors, as OTB provides a way to achieve further incentives through relatedness an organisation itself cannot provide. Thus, we suggest that with all the conditions considered, if individuals are higher in their need for belonging, they may encounter much less guilt when performing OTB, as it then only serves an instrumental function. Further in this sense of logic, we could also expect the moderated mediation model validate given the theoretical strong bond between OTB-guilt-job engagement.
H4: OTB actor’s need to belong will positively moderate the indirect effect of OTB on job engagement through such guilt elicited. Whereas higher OTB performer will experience much lower guilt when possessing a higher need to belong, comparing to those with lower of it.
H5: The full moderated mediation model considering H1, H2, H3, and H4 will show significant.
To sum up, altogether these investigations provide a conceptual integration in regards to this special extra-role behaviour, with perspectives of ever-omitted interactions, their roles functioning in an organisation, and its implication for future research. Present study posits OTB to have an overall negative influence on the workplace dynamism. However given the adaptation function within individuals, present study consider the bigger crisis should fall on OTB’s effect on the organsiaitonal dynamism as a whole. Apart from the initial transgression against the organisation’s interest, it is the gradual adaptation of OTB behavioural convention and the elicited guilt that matter more in the long term to be undermining. In a macro point of view, the adaptation of OTB relationships although facilitate interpersonal communacation and efficiency, it also mean the voluntary admission of cooporated misdeed within the organisation. Not only the misdeed hidden in OTBs, the lowered level of guilt experienced may lead to lower level of job engagement individuals would compensate back to the transgressed relationship. At last, present study reckons that it is our responsibility to explore further on this unfolded mystery. Being left out for so long, it is time to pick out the devils in the fabric.
Results & Discussion
The hypotheses proposed in the present study was generally supported, that the altruism on colleague’s disallowed behaviour, namely OTB, can through the mediation of the inevitably elicited guilt, affect one’s job engagement as an outcome. We found that people with lower OTB score (which can be regarded as those yet, or poorly adapted to the behaviour or relationship) is linked to higher guilt, and consistent with past research (e.g., Baumeister, 1994; Covert et al., 2003; Flynn & Schaumberg, 2013; Ilies et al., 2013), it showed higher compensatory effect in their work effort. Whereas people with higher score in OTB (also those who are well adapted in such concept or relationship) is showed to elicited lower guilt in performing such behaviours, and thus linked to lower job engagement. Further, the level of need to belong moderated the relationship between performing OTB and the guilt induced. Altogether, it is individual’s adaptation and need for belonging that determine the effect of OTB on the subsequent work effort one will produce.
Present paper considers ourselves contributing to at least three areas of organisation behaviour literature. First, we introduced a comprehensive perspective of viewing extra-role behaviours, which allows more implications to be applied on different targets a behaviour can affect. More importantly, it revealed the focus of present study that behaviours such as OTBs can have a harmful effect even under direct altruistic presence. Despite the previous noticing (Robinson & Binnett, 1995; Dalal, 2005) and discussing (Bolino et al, 2013; Bolino & Grant, 2016; Bolino & Grant, 2016; Yam, Klotz, He & Reynolds, 2017) of those mixed affecting behaviours in the workplace, like the study of Castille, Buckner, and Thoroughgood (2018) we regard it more appropriate to further separate the idea of OTB from only the subsequent products of OCBs. It is worth noted that we do not consider OTB as deviant, or as citizenship behaviour. In concordance with the above-proposed taxonomy, they are not directly harming the organisation as aggression (Fox & Spector, 1999), deviance (Robinson & Bennett, 1995), or behaviours like abuse against others, production deviance, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal (Spector et al, 2006). They are neither intending to enhance the organisation’s functioning and performance according to Organ’s initial definition (1983). OTB is not behaviourally nor intentionally resembles both OCB and CWB, for that reason, it is important not to confuse OTB with either behaviour and so it also justify for present study in building and theorising such behaviour for the future literature to come.
Secondly, based on the conflicting effects on different direct targets, this study explored OTBs’ effect on an individual’s overall job engagement through the elicitation of guilt. Although guilt’s effect on an individual’s work effort has acquired significant results, the way OTB’s level in relation to the relationship-transgression induced guilt has provided more implications regarding OTB’s working mechanisms. Of which, the hypothesised influential role of guilt in this study took both organisation and individual’s role into consideration in contrast to past studies’ discussion in either part’s perspective (cf. Bohns & Flynn, 2013; Tangney, 1991; Baumeister, Stillwell & Heatherton, 1994). And has supported the idea of anticipatory belief contributing to such guilt experienced (Caprara et al., 2001). With the basic urge to gain and maintain the sense of inclusiveness, people compensate relationship whichever is transgressed by self’s misbehaviour, regardless of other intakes of relationship enhancement. Moreover, in a subtler perspective of personal interaction in the workplace, people adapt to abide norms to remain internally and externally balance; the results of a negative relationship between OTB and guilt also hinted the potential adaption treadmill of such balance driven by self’s anticipatory needs, guilt, and the yet discovered counteracting force. Concordant with our worries, this findings of adaptation did suggest a critical alarming message that threatens an organisation’s overall dynamics, which is also, in our regard, the most substantial effect OTBs can result in the organisation functioning as a whole, that the adaptation of guilt not only reassure the existence of OTBs in the workplace, the lowered guilt also suggested less individual vigilance in the environment. As a result, though we didn’t assess the baseline job engagement in our study, the negative relationship between guilt and job engagement did provide a sign that the latter could potentially suffer from the very adaption of guilt. Still, as said, we do not consider there to be a universal determinant of how one will carry out the OTB effect, but only the propensity going down with different guilt levels, according to respective attributions and the situation where one is currently settled in. Collectively saying, the propensity should still rely on the ways individual processing the inevitable guilt elicited from performing OTB.
Additionally, together with the moderation effect of need to belong, the result unveiled the possibilities of OTBs to be used in an instrumental way to achieve goals potentially exceeding interpersonal relationship. As the positive moderation of need to belong suggested individuals with a higher level of it would feel less guilty in conducting OTBs, individuals wouldn’t be focusing their priority on relationship transgression, but rather on the much primitive and formidable need for belonging. The effect combines with the OTB adaptations further counteract guilt’s role in binding the normal functioning behaviour within an organisation. The result presents itself as a unique empirical contribution in the literature mentioning social networking, political skills, or guanxi in Chinese cultural setting; it supported the joint suggestions on the beneficial facilitation of such “weak ties” in acquiring resources (e.g. Podolny & Baron, 1997; Sparrowe, Liden, Wayne, & Kraimer, 2001; Bedford, 2002; Cole, Schaninger & Harris, 2002), whereas it also provided a much detailed insight into the internal mechanism of exchanges between colleagues (cf. Cole et al.,2002) and the moral implication in such relationship (cf. Tan & Snell, 2002). From a behaviour point of view, the exploitation of OTB implied the formation and dynamism of clique or informal network within an organisation.
Lastly, present study makes a methodological contribution in conducting behaviour analysis of OTB’s mechanism through a non-experimental survey. With strict integrity of linking the functional relationship between independent and dependent variable, present study had a firm foundation both theoretically and operationally (c.f., Peterson, Homer & Wonderlich, 1982). Present study stemmed from the ample results of previous studies in the same theoretical realm (i.e., OCBs, CWBs, and UPBs), and in OTB’s nature of violating relationship, the internal-conflict elicited guilt’s reparative effect paved the way for present study’s theoretical implication. In a more specific term, OTB itself represent paradoxical psychological state, and in restoring internal balance, individuals react behaviourally on the other end. Operationally speaking, in addition to the multiple-phase design in the data collection, we further controlled for the other two prevailed behaviours of OCB and CWB to avoid the possible confusion contributed by either behaviour’s effect.
Managerial Implication
Extra-role work behaviours have always been seen as a major topic for an organisation to nourish a functioning, competitive unit (Bolino & Turnley, 2003; Fodchuk, 2007). The development of OTB should provide several implications to the practical fields in the workplace as the distinguishing, discussion and definition of those ubiquitous yet neglected behaviours within general workplace provided that managers should aware and monitor employees’ behaviour in a subtler fashion.
The categorisation of OTB rationalises the idea that altruism in the workplace can also do harm to the organisation as a whole. Rather than being solely good or bad, the existence of OTB could encourage supervisors to take notice of the possible crisis storming under the surface. Further, it revealed that not all increase in employees’ job engagement can be attributed to the likes of positive organisational upbringing, but can be a compensation to the damage an organisation has taken on the other end. It should also be questioned if the compensated engagement was worth the risk of organisation loss. Overall, it provided a more detailed toolbox for managers to monitor the dynamism in the organisation.
Therefore, aside from discouraging the potential chance for employees to harm the organisation through OTBs, managers should take a step further, and ensure the potential incentives (e.g., need for belonging, or monetary reward, etc.) for employees to perform OTB can be met in a positive way. Present study suggested that albeit the impossible of elimination, organisation leaders and managers should still take an active role in preventing OTB’s from happening.
Conclusion
Being a glue-like supporting role between an organisation and its members (Katz, 1964; Organ, 1977), extra-role behaviour accounted hugely for organisation’s overall culture and dynamism. Present study exceeded the current knowledge and revealed that the seeming altruism of OTBs in the workplace can actually undermine organisation’s interest without being noticed. The guilt elicited from the contradicting interest of different targets mediates the effect of OTB and the compensating effect showed on individual’s job engagement. And need to belong’s moderation effect on OTB-guilt relationship further indicating interpersonal relationship’s role as an incentive to perform OTB. Overall, the result suggests that in the fundamental urge, people are willing to cover-up for colleagues’ misdeed that harm’s the organisation in order to meet the personal need for relationship. And regardless of the guilt that results in the eventual compensation in job engagement, the effect would decrease along with the adaptation of such relationship, which indicating by the increasing OTB level and decreasing guilt.