Machine summary:
Moral license can be viewed as a process that removes deterrents to deviant behavior and allows individuals to act more freely and in accordance with their inner feelings, preferences, and desires, regardless of social and cultural norms and even the rules of conduct (Miller & Effron, 2010), so that in some cases moral licenses give a 182 person a special right - beyond legal rights - that sets the stage for the creation of an unhealthy work environment and can go so far that nothing and no one is in its place, immorality becomes pervasive, and distrust dominates relationships.
Thus, further research, with a comprehensive look at this phenomenon, to identify the other causes and factors that lead to the emergence of moral licensing and due to fill this gap in the organizational behavior studies, is needed.
Moreover, and based on the aforementioned economic, social, and psychological costs to public sector organizations of deviant behavior, this study seeks to present a coherent and integrated model of moral licensing by identifying the constituent elements of the moral licensing phenomenon and the antecedents and underlying factors of moral licensing in public administrations that have been neglected in previous research.
Research overview Since the first study on moral licensing conducted by Monin and Miller in 2001, numerous studies have been conducted in this area (Blanken, Van de Ven & Zeelenberg, 2015), Khan and Dhar (2006) attempted to investigate this hypothesis in their study titled "Licensing effect in consumer choice": If individuals' past choices and behaviors reinforce their self- concept, they are more likely to make more selfish choices in the future.