Aiming at the organizational sustainable development: Employees’ pro-social rule breaking as response to high performance expectations

Abstract

Despite the continuous increase in empirical research on pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), why organizational members conduct this behavior volitionally still requires further exploration. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, our study investigated the impact of leaders’ high performance expectations on employees’ PSRB, following a hypothetical model with work stress as the mediator and perceived organizational support as the moderator. A three-waved time-lagged survey covering 208 dyad data of supervisor-subordinate from 41 teams of five enterprises in Shanghai, China, provided support for our hypotheses. After analyzing, we found that high performance expectations increased employees’ work stress, and further influenced employees’ PSRB substantially via stress, where the relationship was moderated by perceived organizational support. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed from a sustainability perspective.