The Brothers are Watching: The Peer Monitoring Mechanism of Healthcare Worker Rivalry in Reducing Unethical Behavior

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Employee misconduct is detrimental to organizations and has attracted vast scholarly attention in the management and ethics literature. Of the various factors examined, competition has been cited as an intuitive structural force that triggers misbehavior (Vadera & Pathki, 2021). Particularly, recent scholarly attention has emphasized the relational lens of competition by treating competition as repetitive interpersonal relationships (i.e., rivalry).

However, there remains ambiguity in the literature regarding the relationship between rivalry and unethical behavior. On the one hand, the prevailing view asserts that exposure to rivalry leads individuals to engage in unethical behavior (Kilduff et al., 2016). On the other hand, this view fails to explain phenomena where perceived competitiveness may also reduce employees’ unethical behavior (Schwepker, 1999). Thus, in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding the relationship of rivalry and cheating behavior amongst healthcare workers and provide insight for organizations to leverage rivalry as one of the positive tools to curb workplace unethical behavior, it is critical to examine the mechanism (e.g. peer monitoring, moral identity) through which rivalry may serve to stifle unethical behavior.

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Data analysis, survey management, literature review

Lead Faculty

Meena Andiappan

Meena Andiappan

HSR – Health Services Organization and Management Studies Emphasis Lead