First 10 Years of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

Unethical pro-organizational behaviours (UPB) are unethical actions taken primarily to benefit the organisation (pro-organization). The concept has sparked a lot of research interest because high-profile events like the Volkswagen emissions scandal, Turing Pharmaceuticals price gouging, and the Wells Fargo Account Fraud have highlighted the need for a better understanding of UPB. The goal of this research is to advise researchers on which journals have been most influential in publishing UPB studies and to identify the most prolific authors in this field. To identify the intellectual structure of UPB literature, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the 30 documents published in SSCI-indexed journals over the last ten years (2010-2019). Finding descriptive trends using three-field plots, citation analysis, author's co-citation analysis, and co-word analysis yielded the insights. The co-citation and co-word analysis assisted in identifying three dominant themes/lines of inquiry in the UPB literature: Cognitive Processes, Identification and Intergroup Relationships, and Leadership Role. This analysis has theoretical as well as practical implications. Theoretically, it will assist scholars and practitioners in gaining an understanding of the evolution of trending topics, which will aid them in planning their future research. In practise, it can provide a clearer and more comprehensive picture of the critical constructs and their relationships with other constructs (including UPB) in order to develop appropriate policies and measures to reduce UPB.