Moral Residue Accumulation and Its Impact on Occupational Stress, Psychological Well-Being, and Work Performance among IT Employees.

Abstract

An IT professional who silently implements a privacy-violating algorithm, or who delivers a surveillance feature they find morally repugnant, does not simply move on. Something remains. This study conceptualises that residue — Moral Residue Accumulation (MRA) — as a distinct moral-psychological construct and empirically examines its impact on occupational stress, psychological well-being, and work performance among Indian IT employees. Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989) and Moral Identity Theory (Aquino & Reed, 2002), the study proposes a dual-pathway model in which occupational stress and psychological well-being serve as parallel mediators between MRA and work performance. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was administered to N = 312 IT employees across India. All constructs were measured on a five-point Likert scale. SPSS based screening yielded a KMO of .903 and Cronbach's alpha values of .84–.88. The four-factor EFA solution explained 68.32% of total variance. AMOS-based SEM demonstrated acceptable model fit (CMIN/DF = 2.14, CFI = .947, RMSEA = .061). MRA had a significant positive effect on occupational stress (β = .58, p < .001) and a significant negative effect on psychological well-being (β = -.46, p < .001). Both mediating pathways to work performance were significant via bootstrapping (5,000 resamples), with the direct MRA → WP path non-significant, indicating full mediation. The study extends moral residue theory beyond healthcare, contributes a validated SEM framework for IT ethics research, and offers actionable implications for HR practice