Can Perfectionists Be Cheaters? The Roles of Fear and Supervisor Bottom-line Mentality

The relentless pursuit of perfection is increasingly prevalent in modern workplaces. By integrating literature on fear and supervisor bottom-line mentality, this research investigates an overlooked question–Why and when employees high on perfectionism engage in cheating behavior in the workplace. Across two multi-wave field studies, our results consistently show that the relationship between employees’ perfectionism and workplace cheating depends on the type of perfectionism. In particular, employees high on perfectionistic concerns rather than perfectionistic strivings are related to cheating. Fear of performance failure serves as an underlying mechanism, which is especially likely to arise when employees’ supervisors have a high bottom-line mentality. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and directions for future research.