Harm or harmony? Error cover-up behaviors at work

Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Publication Date

8-2022

Abstract

Instances constantly occur in the workplace wherein one notices errors made by coworkers and chooses not to report to others but rather handle them in a secluded way. However, research on employee errors has not examined employee cover-up of coworkers’ errors. We identified proactive and passive error cover-up as two dimensions of error cover-up behavior and defined proactive error cover-up as one intentionally handling a coworker’s error without calling attention from others and passive error cover-up as one purposefully disregarding a coworker’s error. Using three studies, we found that (1) employee high-quality relationships with other team members (TMX) is positively related to proactive error cover-up; (2) psychological safety is negatively related to passive error cover-up; (3) proactive error cover-up is positively related to team performance while passive error cover-up is negatively related to team performance. Our findings contribute to a better comprehension of employee cover-up of peer errors.

Discipline

Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Proceedings of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM 2022), Seattle, Washington, August 5-9

Identifier

10.5465/AMBPP.2022.13649abstract

Publisher

AOM

City or Country

Seattle, WA

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2022.13649abstract

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