Antecedents and Consequences of Moral Efficacy in the Workplace:A Review and Prospect
Employees'morally relevant behavior depends not only on their motivational factors such as attention(moral attentiveness)and value(moral identity)of moral issues,but also on their belief in their ability to deal with moral issues.Such belief can be described as moral efficacy,which is the degree of belief(confidence)in one's capabilities to organize and mobilize the motivation,cognitive resources,means,and courses of action needed to attain moral performance,within a given moral domain,while persisting in the face of moral adversity.As moral efficacy was found to have sizeable effects on both individuals'moral cognition and behavior and organizations'moral decisions and conducts,it has received increasing attention in recent years.However,the existing research on moral efficacy is relatively fragmented,and there is a lack of conversation between the studies.This article systematically reviews the research in this field to clarify a series of key issues about moral efficacy.Our review indicated that moral efficacy is the general self-efficacy in moral domain.Moral efficacy could be shaped by leadership and organizational contexts.Moral efficacy not only affects moral outcomes,but influences immoral consequences such as emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.Extending the understanding of moral efficacy,future research should rethink the matching between measurement and connotation of moral efficacy,investigate the detrimental effects of negative contextual factors on moral efficacy,identify individual differences that affect moral efficacy,discuss interactions between individual and team moral efficacy,and examine the variability and fluctuations of moral efficacy.
Moral EfficacyMoral BehaviorBusiness EthicsMoral Potency