The impact of employees’ constrictive deviance on job performance: The roles of ethical conflict and moral identity

Abstract In today’s dynamic and uncertain organizational environment, employees’ proactivity has become increasingly vital for organizational resilience and performance. As a proactive form of behavior that challenges existing norms for constructive purposes, investigating constructive deviance is essential for understanding how employees contribute to organizational success. This study explores how and when constrictive deviance influences employees’ job performance by integrating moral conviction theory and resource conservation theory. Using three-wave survey data collected from 244 employees, the results show that: (1) constructive deviance has a positive predictive effect on ethical conflict; (2) ethical conflict mediates the relationship between constructive deviance and job performance; (3) moral identity strengthens the positive relationship between ethical conflict and job performance; and (4) moral identity further moderates the indirect effect of constructive deviance on job performance via ethical conflict, the higher the level of employees’ moral identity, the stronger the positive indirect effect of constructive deviance on job performance through ethical conflict. These findings not only uncover the mechanism and boundary conditions through which constructive deviance affects job performance, but also extend the understanding of ethical conflict in the workplace and offer important practical implications for managing positive deviant behaviors.