We examined the relationship between organizational identification and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB)-unethical behaviors conducted by employees to potentially benefit the organization. We predicted that organizational identification would be positively related to UPB and that positive reciprocity beliefs would moderate and strengthen this relationship. The results from 2 field studies support the interaction effect and show that individuals who strongly identify with their organization are more likely to engage in UPB when they hold strong positive reciprocity beliefs. Given the nature of reciprocity, our findings may suggest that highly identified employees who hold strong reciprocity beliefs may conduct UPB with an anticipation of a future reward from their organization. Theoretical and managerial implications of our results for understanding unethical behaviors are discussed.

W e propose that employees sometimes engage in unethical acts with the intent to benefit their organization, its members, or both-a construct we term unethical pro-organizational behavior. We suggest that positive social exchange relationships and organizational identification may lead to unethical pro-organizational behavior indirectly via neutralization, the process by which the moral content of unethical actions is overlooked. We incorporate situational and individual-level constructs as moderators of these relationships and consider managerial implications and future research.Key words: unethical behavior; social exchange; organizational identification; ethics; moral disengagement; neutralization; guilt; shame; amoral culture; severity History: Published online in Articles in Advance September 15, 2010.When there's a slow-down I may lie to protect the company image by telling the passengers that we're waiting on bags rather than that the mechanic is taking his own sweet time.I would make excuses to protect the company, like if the cabin was filthy, I'd say, "I'm sorry it's dirty. We contracted out our services." I did that more times than I can remember, to protect the company's image (Scott 2003, p. 332, anonymous accounts from two flight attendants)In a survey of more than 2,000 executive assistants and secretaries in Canada and the United States, researchers found that 10% destroyed or removed damaging information, 6.5% wrote documents with misleading or false information, and 5.1% falsified vouchers or expense accounts. All of this unethical activity was performed by employees to benefit their bosses, their organizations, or both (Kleiman 1996). A more recent study on organizational ethics found that more than onethird of U.S. adults surveyed had witnessed unethical activities at their workplace. Of those questioned, 19% observed lying to employees, customers, vendors, or the public (Gurchiek 2006).Clearly, unethical activity is present within organizations. As illustrated by the opening examples of the flight attendants, employees may engage in unethical actions, such as lying, to benefit the organization. In this work, we consider the potential motivations for unethical behaviors conducted to benefit the organization or its agents, a construct we call "unethical pro-organizational behavior." Existing research acknowledges that employees may conduct unethical behaviors on behalf of the organization (Ashforth and Anand 2003, Brief et al. 2001, Pinto et al. 2008), but a construct and theoretically grounded framework for understanding the underlying mechanisms of such behavior has not been thoroughly developed.Our work contributes to the organizational literature in four ways. First, our work is unique in its focus on how positive social exchange and organizational identification can encourage unethical behavior intended to benefit the organization. Although generally thought to elicit favorable and ethical behavior for the organization (Ashforth and Mael 1989, Blau 1964, Gouldner 1960, Tajfel and Turner 1...

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We argue that employees' organizational justice perceptions are, in part, influenced by whom they associate with in the workplace. Consequently, we examine the link between different types of social ties and the interpersonal similarity of employees' perceptions of interactional, procedural, and distributive justice through a social network study in a division of a Fortune 500 firm. We predicted and found that social ties influence perceptions of justice to different extents, depending on the type of justice assessed. Expressive ties were associated with greater similarity in coworkers' perceptions than instrumental ties in the most affect-inducing justice perceptions, perceptions of interactional justice. Our findings suggest that the opinions held by an individual's coworkers influence others' justice perceptions, especially when justice is ambiguous and affect inducing, and that different justice perceptions may be transmitted via different types of social ties.

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