Social comparisons and deception across workplace hierarchies: : Field and experimental evidence

• Autores: Benjamin Edelman, Ian Larkin
• Localización: Organization Science, ISSN-e 1526-5455, Vol. 26, Nº. 1, 2015, págs. 78-98
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We examine how unfavorable social comparisons differentially spur employees of varying hierarchical levels to engage in deception. Drawing on literatures in social psychology and workplace self-esteem, we theorize that negative comparisons cause senior employees to seek to improve reported relative performance measures via deception. In a first study, we use deceptive self-downloads on the Social Science Research Network, the leading working paper repository in the social sciences, to show that employees higher in a hierarchy are more likely to engage in deception, particularly when the employee has enjoyed a high level of past success. In a second study, we confirm this finding in two scenario-based experiments. Our results suggest that longer-tenured and more successful employees face a greater loss of self-esteem from negative social comparisons, and they are more likely engage in deception in response to reported performance that is lower than that of peers.