Is loyalty still a merit for employees?

This research investigated group reactions to disloyal and loyal members via two experiments.Experiment One analysed the loyal membership versus behaviour evaluation, whereas the ExperimentTwo focused on the emotional and sanction reactions against disloyal members. For both experiments, theloyalty (disloyalty) was operationalized in terms of staying in (leaving) a group when leaving is personallybeneficial yet harmful to the group. Overall, research findings verified that disloyal members were stillevaluated more negatively than loyal members, especially when such members were of critical status. Furtheranalyses suggested that disloyal critical status members were disliked more because they had the potential toundermine group identification. The findings affirmed that loyal membership was still crucial to the group,especially for those critical-status managers and group leaders in real-life workplaces and organisations.Implications on HRM strategies and advices to managerial practitioners are outlined