Investigating job autonomy as an antecedent of unethical pro-organisational behaviour and displacement of responsibility

Unethical pro-organisational behaviour is behaviour that benefits an employee's organisation but negatively affects their stakeholders (e.g., customers or clients). In this dissertation, I show that low (compared to high) levels of job autonomy facilitate unethical pro-organisational behaviour through a sense of reduced personal responsibility for the negative consequences of one's work. My research also indicated that low autonomy facilitates the 'moral disengagement' strategy of displacement of responsibility when an employee engages in unethical pro-organisational behaviour. Displacement of responsibility involves attributing responsibility for one's own unethical behaviour onto a figure of authority, rather than feeling personally responsible for that behaviour.