Han Ren

Taking the organizational neuroscience approach, we integrate evolutionary theories of sex differences and neuroscientific theory of the self-regulation system to develop a neurological index explaining the distinct relationships between job stress and moral disengagement for female versus male employees. We surveyed 179 full-time working adults and measured their brain activity using resting-state fMRI. The results show a significant relationship between job stress and moral disengagement for male but not for female employees. As hypothesized, job stress is positively associated with the brain’s self-regulation system indicated by resting-state functional connectivity of core regions in the central-executive network, salience network, and default mode network (i.e., RSFC of CEN-SN/DMN) for females only, which reduces their moral disengagement. Further analyses of these data and data from our supplementary experiment reveal an introspective mechanism females rely on that prevents them from moral disengagement, which does not exist in males. Overall, our findings provide insights into an important neurological pathway of RSFC of CEN-SN/DMN as well as introspection in the sex-specific self-regulation mechanism underlying the job stress—moral disengagement relationship, which have important theoretical and practical implications for organization ethics.