Ethical Dilemmas in Performance-Oriented Management: A Dual-Path Systems Model

Background: High-performance work systems (HPWSs), while designed to boost corporate performance, can inadvertently create a core organizational paradox, triggering a negative feedback loop. Specifically, their intense focus on performance outcomes can create a climate conducive to unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), as employees navigate the pressures and perceived obligations, ultimately undermining the organization’s long-term sustainability and viability. While prior research has identified important singular pathways, the mechanisms through which HPWSs simultaneously generate both perceived obligations and performance pressures remain ambiguous. Methods: Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, we propose and test a moderated dual-mediation framework. Using survey data from 473 employees, we examine psychological contract fulfillment and bottom-line mentality as parallel mediators, with moral identity as a moderator, in the HPWS-UPB relationship. Results: The analysis demonstrated that HPWSs influence UPB through two distinct and paradoxical pathways: a pressure-driven path via an increased bottom-line mentality, and a reciprocity-driven path via enhanced psychological contract fulfillment. Moral identity emerged as a crucial, albeit asymmetrical, buffer, with its buffering role being particularly consequential for the pressure-driven pathway, as moral identity also significantly weakened the indirect effect of HPWSs on UPB channeled through bottom-line mentality. Conclusions: These findings offer a holistic, systems-based understanding of the performance-ethics paradox. The validation of a dual-pathway model provides a new blueprint for how a single management system produces contradictory outcomes through competing mechanisms. The identification of key intervention points (e.g., fostering moral identity) offers practical strategies for managers to foster systems that support both high productivity and a sustainable ethical climate.