Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Behavioral Integrity: Examining the Effects of Trust Velocity and Psychological Contract Breach

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Leader behavioral integrity (BI) is central to perceived credibility and thus to leaders’ effectiveness at fostering ethical and other climates. Our research broadens the theoretical foundation for BI research by integrating the cognitive–attributional role of trust in the formation and maintenance of leader BI perceptions. Guided by recent research on trust primacy and prior theories of fairness used to examine ethical behavior, we examine how perceptions of leader BI can be either diminished or maintained through trust velocity following a psychological contract breach. Using a field and an experimental study, we explore the manner in which followers perceive leader’s actions when conflicting interests lead to unfulfilled promises. We found that trust velocity mediates the relationship between a psychological contract breach and leader BI (study 1), and that informational justice moderates this relationship (study 2), suggesting that leaders can attenuate the impact of broken promises on ascribed BI. Our findings offer a pathway for leaders operating in dynamic contexts to preserve BI and also help address concerns that have been raised about the behavioral integrity construct regarding its conceptual overlap with related constructs such as trust, psychological contracts, and informational justice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Results of a repeated-measures ANOVA confirm significant within-subject variability in trust in leader across the four waves of the survey (F(1,106) = 4.51, p < .05), supporting the notion of trust velocity as a meaningful variable within the context of our study. Although we did not formally hypothesize effects of BI velocity (i.e., direction and rate of change in leader BI perceptions over time), we also generated a measure of this construct in an effort to rule out concerns of reverse causality. The non-significant within-person variability in leader BI (F(1,106) = 1.28, n.s.) is not surprising, and in line with our theorizing suggests that trust may be more malleable and efficacious in explaining BI perceptions than vice versa.

  2. We ultimately dropped the reverse scored item, “If people knew more about this individual and his/her background, they would be more concerned and monitor his/her performance more closely” as this item demonstrated poor factor loadings (λ = .06 pre, .12 post) and item-total correlations (r = .05, .12, respectively). Reliability for the scale increased (pre α = .69 to .81; post α = .76 to .84) when omitting this item.

References

  • Bentein, K., Vandenberg, R., Vandenberghe, C., & Stinglhamber, F. (2005). The role of change in the relationship between commitment and turnover: a latent growth modeling approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 468–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Börjeson, L. (2015). Interorganizational situations—An explorative typology. European Management Journal, 33, 191–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Börjeson, L. (2018). Trust and betrayal in interorganizational relationships: A systemic functional grammar analysis. Human Relations, 71, 399–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, G., Ployhart, R. E., Thomas, H. C., Anderson, N., & Bliese, P. D. (2011). The power of momentum: A new model of dynamic relationships between job satisfaction change and turnover intentions. Academy of Management Journal, 54(1), 159–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 386–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colquitt, J. A., Baer, M. D., Long, D. M., & Halvorsen-Ganepola, M. D. (2014). Scale indicators of social exchange relationships: A comparison of relative content validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 599–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colquitt, J. A., Scott, B. A., & LePine, J. A. (2007). Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: a meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 909–927.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crandall, C., & Sherman, J. W. (2016). On the scientific superiority of conceptual replications for scientific progress. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 66, 93–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, A. L., & Rothstein, H. R. (2006). The effects of the perceived behavioral integrity of managers on employee attitudes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 67, 407–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dineen, B. R., Lewicki, R. J., & Tomlinson, E. C. (2006). Supervisory guidance and behavioral integrity: Relationships with employee citizenship and deviant behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 622–635.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2001). The role of trust in organizational settings. Organization Science, 12, 450–467.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 611–628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erkutlu, H., & Chafra, J. (2016). Impact of behavioral integrity on organizational identification: The moderating roles of power distance and organizational politics. Management Research Review, 39(6), 672–691.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erkutlu, H. V., & Chafra, J. (2017). Leader narcissism and subordinate embeddedness: The moderating roles of moral attentiveness and behavioral integrity. EuroMed Journal of Business, 12, 146–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fritz, J. H., O’Neil, N. B., Popp, A. M., Williams, C., & Arnett, R. C. (2013). The influence of supervisory behavioral integrity on intent to comply with organizational ethical standards and organizational commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 114, 251–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 561–568.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J. (1993). The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice. In R. Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management (pp. 79–103). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagtvedt, H. (2011). The impact of incomplete typeface logos on perceptions of the firm. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 86–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannah, S. T., Sumanth, J. J., Lester, P., & Cavarretta, F. (2014). Debunking the false dichotomy of leadership idealism and pragmatism: Critical evaluation and support of newer genre leadership theories. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(5), 598–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hausknecht, J. P., Sturman, M. C., & Roberson, Q. M. (2011). Justice as a dynamic construct: Effects of individual trajectories on distal work outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 872–880.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Holtz, B. C. (2013). Trust primacy: A model of the reciprocal relations between trust and perceived justice. Journal of Management, 39, 1891–1923.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holtz, B. C. (2014). From first impression to fairness perception: Investigating the impact of initial trustworthiness beliefs. Personnel Psychology, 68, 499–546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., Wanberg, C. R., Glomb, T. M., & Ahlburg, D. (2005). The role of temporal shifts in turnover processes: It’s about time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 644–658. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.4.644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kannan-Narasimhan, R., & Lawrence, B. (2012). Behavioral integrity: How leader referents and trust matter to workplace outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(2), 165–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krantz, J. (2006). Leadership, betrayal and adaptation. Human Relations, 59(2), 221–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leroy, H., Dierynck, B., Anseel, F., Simons, T., Halbesleben, J. R. B., McCaughey, D., et al. (2012). Behavioral integrity for safety, priority of safety, psychological safety, and patient safety: A team-level study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 1273–1281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewicki, R. J., & Bunker, B. B. (1996). Developing and maintaining trust in work relationships. Trust in organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, 114, 139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lind, E. A., Kray, L., & Thompson, L. (2001). Primacy effects in justice judgments: Testing predictions from fairness heuristic theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 85, 189–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lind, E. A., & Van den Bos, K. (2002). When fairness works: Toward a general theory of uncertainty management. In B. M. Staw & R. M. Kramer (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 24, pp. 181–223). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAllister, D. J. (1995). Affect-and cognition-based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 24–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLean Parks, J., Ma, L., & Gallagher, D. G. (2010). Elasticity in the ‘rules’ of the game: Exploring organizational expedience. Human Relations, 63(5), 701–730.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, R. C., & Davis, J. H. (1999). The effect of the performance appraisal system on trust for management: A field quasi-experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(1), 123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milfont, T. L., Duckitt, J., & Cameron, L. D. (2006). A cross-cultural study of environmental motive concerns and their implications for proenvironmental behavior. Environment and Behavior, 38, 745–767.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moorman, R. H., Darnold, T. C., & Priesemuth, M. (2013). Perceived leader integrity: Supporting the construct validity and utility of a multi-dimensional measure in two samples. The Leadership Quarterly, 24, 427–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moorman, R. H., Darnold, T. C., Priesemuth, M., & Dunn, C. P. (2012). Toward the measurement of perceived leader integrity: Introducing a multidimensional approach. Journal of Change Management, 12, 383–398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palanski, M., Newman, A., Leroy, H., Moore, C., Hannah, S., & Den Hartog, D. (2019). Quantitative research on leadership and business ethics: Examining the state of the field and an agenda for future research. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04267-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palmatier, R. W., Houston, M. B., Dant, R. P., & Grewal, D. (2013). Relationship velocity: Toward a theory of relationship dynamics. Journal of Marketing, 77, 13–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ployhart, R. E., & Oswald, F. L. (2004). Applications of mean and covariance structure analysis: Integrating correlational and experimental approaches. Organizational Research Methods, 7, 27–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prottas, D. J. (2008). Perceived behavioral integrity: Relationships with employee attitudes, well-being, and absenteeism. Journal of Business Ethics, 81, 313–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prottas, D. J. (2013). Relationships among employee perception of their manager’s behavioral integrity, moral distress, and employee attitudes and well-being. Journal of Business Ethics, 113, 51–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prottas, D. J., & Nummelin, M. R. (2018). Behavioral integrity, engagement, organizational citizenship behavior, and service quality in a healthcare setting. Journal of Healthcare Management, 63(6), 410–424. https://doi.org/10.1097/JHM-D-17-00134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, S. L. (1996). Trust and breach of the psychological contract. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41, 574–599.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, S. L., & Rousseau, D. M. (1994). Violating the psychological contract: Not the exception but the norm. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15, 245–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, S. L., & McLean Parks, J. (1993). The contracts of individuals and organizations. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 15, pp. 1–43). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, D. M., Sitkin, S. B., Burt, R. S., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23, 393–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, T. (2002). Behavioral integrity: The perceived alignment between managers' words and deeds as a research focus. Organization Science, 13, 18–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, T., Friedman, R., Liu, L. A., & McLean Parks, J. (2007). Racial differences in sensitivity to behavioral integrity: Attitudinal consequences, in-group effects, and "trickle down" among Black and non-Black employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 650–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, T., Leroy, H., Collewaert, V., & Masschelein, S. (2015). How leader alignment of words and deeds affects followers: A Meta-analysis of behavioral integrity research. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(4), 831–844.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skarlicki, D. P., Barclay, L. J., & Pugh, D. S. (2008). When explanations for layoffs are not enough: Employer's integrity as a moderator of the relationship between informational justice and retaliation. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81, 123–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2005). Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 845–851.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thau, S., Bennett, R. J., Mitchell, M. S., & Marrs, M. B. (2009). How management style moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and workplace deviance: An uncertainty management theory perspective. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108(1), 79–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomlinson, E. C., & Mayer, R. C. (2009). The role of causal attribution dimensions in trust repair. Academy of Management Review, 34, 85–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vandenberg, R. J., & Lance, C. E. (2000). A review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: Suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 3(1), 4–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van den Bos, K., Lind, E. A., & Wilke, H. A. M. (2001). The psychology of procedural and distributive justice viewed from the perspective of fairness heuristic theory. In R. Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the workplace—From Theory to Practice (Vol. 2, pp. 49–66). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogelgesang, G. R., Leroy, H., & Avolio, B. J. (2013). The mediating effects of leader integrity with transparency in communication and work engagement/performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 24, 405–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, H. A. O., Wayne, S. J., Glibkowski, B. C., & Bravo, J. (2007). The impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 60(3), 647–680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The authors declare that they have complied with all ethical standards, and did not receive any external funding for this work.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Gretchen R. Vogelgesang and Craig Crossley have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lucas College of Business, School of Management, San Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA, 95192, USA

    Gretchen R. Vogelgesang

  2. College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, 12744 Pegasus Dr., Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Craig Crossley

  3. School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853-6902, USA

    Tony Simons

  4. Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Bruce J. Avolio

Authors
  1. Gretchen R. Vogelgesang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Craig Crossley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tony Simons
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Bruce J. Avolio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gretchen R. Vogelgesang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

Measurement Invariance (Study 1)

The hypothesized two-factor model was tested for longitudinal measurement invariance following the recommendations outlined by Vandenberg and Lance (2000) to determine whether trust and BI perceptions were measured similarly across time. We conducted the four measurement invariance tests described by Hausknecht et al. (2011) to establish conditions for subsequently testing changes in trust. The first, baseline, model examined configural invariance (equivalent factor structure). Results (see M1 in Table

Table 4 MCFA measurement invariance model summaries and comparisons
Full size table

4 below), in combination with the series of single versus two-factor model tests above, supported this aspect of measurement invariance.

Next, we tested metric invariance (invariant factor loadings), by freeing these parameters at different time periods and comparing this model (M2) to the model with fixed factor loadings (M1). Whereas these models were not significantly different, we retained the more parsimonious invariant model (M1). Third, we tested for invariant uniqueness (test of equal error variances) by freeing these parameters at different time periods (M3). Results of this model suggested that error variances differed across time periods, prompting further investigation. It is noteworthy that while perfect measurement invariance is ideal, models often fail to support this for all items (see Milfont, Duckitt and Cameron 2006; Vandenberg and Lance 2000), and that configural invariance and (at least partial) metric invariance need to be established before testing any further partial invariance models. Indeed, Vandenberg and Lance (2000) argue that partial invariance is permissible if the parameters relaxed to vary across groups (in our case, time) are a minority of indicators.

Having met the first two conditions of configural and metric invariance, we set out to determine the source and extent of non-equivalent error variance. After testing individual items across BI and trust constructs, we isolated the source to a single BI item (see M3.1), and to a single time point of measurement (M3.2). Relaxing this one item’s uniqueness for a specific time point provided an improved fit. It is noteworthy, that this parameter represented 1.5% (i.e., minority) of the total number of parameters compared in the measurement invariance tests, and the respective parameter changed from θδ = 0.18 to θδ = 0.12 (standardized). This made no detectable difference in the overall model fit indices (i.e., SRMR, CIR, NNFI).

In our fourth and final test of measurement invariance, we examined invariant factor variances by comparing this refined baseline model (M3.2) to a model that freely estimated latent construct variances and covariances (M4). Results suggested that people did not use a narrower range of the construct continuum, and that latent constructs remained equally correlated over time. In total, results supported measurement invariance, helping to rule out measurement artifacts as an alternative explanation for study findings and hypothesis tests described next.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vogelgesang, G.R., Crossley, C., Simons, T. et al. Behavioral Integrity: Examining the Effects of Trust Velocity and Psychological Contract Breach. J Bus Ethics 172, 175–190 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04497-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04497-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation