Degree

Master of Science in Management

School

School of Business Studies (SBS)

Department

Department of Management

Date of Submission

Spring 2026-9-8

Supervisor

Dr. Yasir Mansoor Kundi, Assistant Professor, Department of Management

Submission Type

MS Management Research Project

Document Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Effort–Reward Imbalance, Moral Disengagement, Moral Intensity, Inclusive  Leadership

Abstract

It aims to study the relationship between Effort – Reward Imbalance (ERI) and Moral Disengagement of Full Time Faculty of Public and Private Universities of Pakistan. Based on Effort–Reward Imbalance Theory, the study examines if there is a mediation effect between effort–reward imbalance and moral disengagement by moral intensity and if there is a moderating effect between effort–reward imbalance and moral disengagement by inclusive leadership. The data were gathered by filling an online questionnaire with the help of convenience and snowball sampling technique with 100 full time faculty members at the university in Pakistan. Following identification of outliers, 90 valid responses were used for analysis. All measures used were previously validated scales of effort–reward imbalance, moral intensity, inclusive leadership, and moral disengagement. The data were analyzed by the SPSS and PROCESS-based conditional process analysis. Findings suggest that effort–reward imbalance is positively associated with moral disengagement, which suggests that faculty who feel they are not being compensated for their work efforts are more likely to rationalize or psychologically detach from moral standards. The effort–reward imbalance, however, was not significantly associated with moral intensity. Additionally, the moral intensity was not significantly found to predict moral disengagement and was not found to mediate the effort–reward imbalance and moral disengagement relationship. There were also no significant moderating effects of inclusive leadership. The study is an extension of the study on Effort–Reward Imbalance Theory which has been applied to the study of ethical workplace behaviour and also addresses the relationships between these in the higher education sector of Pakistan. The results indicate that the moral disengagement of university staff can be reduced with the fairness of workloads, rewards, recognition, the transparency of promotion systems, and the supportiveness of institutional policies

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