Abstract
Pressure to promote new products can influence salespeople’s ethical behavior in complex ways. While moderate pressure may motivate performance, it can also increase the likelihood of unethical conduct, such as exaggerating product benefits or misrepresenting contract terms. However, existing research largely assumes a linear relationship between pressure and unethical behavior. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we propose an inverted U-shaped relationship between supervisory pressure to promote new products and salespeople’s unethical conduct. Specifically, unethical behavior increases as promotional pressure rises, but declines once pressure becomes excessive. Further from neutralization perspective, we argue that psychological justifications can facilitate unethical conduct by weakening ethical restraint. Using two-wave data from 391 pharmaceutical salespeople in Bangladesh, we find support for the proposed inverted U-shaped relationship and for the roles of denial of responsibility and denial of injury as key neutralization mechanisms. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.