The optimist’s arsenal: how employees’ trait optimism disarms ethical conflicts, mitigates deviance and promotes knowledge sharing

Purpose This study aims to investigate how and when dyadic ethical conflict influences workplace behavior. It proposes that such conflict heightens contact avoidance, which in turn reduces knowledge sharing and increases interpersonal deviance. Furthermore, the study proposes that employee dispositional optimism as a boundary condition that mitigates these negative effects. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a multi-method approach. Study 1 was a scenario-based experiment (n = 91) that manipulated dyadic ethical conflict to examine its psychological impact. Study 2 was a three-wave field study using matched employee-coworker dyads (n = 241), enabling a longitudinal test of the proposed moderated mediation model. Findings Results showed that dyadic ethical conflict increases contact avoidance, which subsequently reduces knowledge sharing and heightens interpersonal deviance. These indirect effects were weaker among employees with higher levels of dispositional optimism, indicating its buffering role. Originality/value This research contributes to the ethical conflict literature by shifting focus to the dyadic level and identifying critical behavioral consequences. It reveals contact avoidance as a key psychological mechanism and highlights optimism as a valuable personal resource that buffers the detrimental effects of ethical conflict on workplace relationships.