Social comparisons and deception across workplace hierarchies
Subtitle: field and experimental evidence
By: Benjamin G. Edelman, Ian I. Larkin
Contributors: Larkin, Ian; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 09-096; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 09-096
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 31
Work titles: Demographics, career concerns or social comparison
Description: 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 with peers could cause either junior or senior employees to seek to improve reported relative performance measures via deception. In a first study, we use deceptive self-downloads on SSRN, 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 are more likely to engage in deception in response to reported performance that is lower than that of peers.
Notes: "February 2009. (Revised August 2013.)"--Publisher's Web site.

Revision of Demographics, career concerns or social comparison: who games SSRN download counts?

Includes bibliographical references (pages 21-24).