Ethical climate defines what is correct behavior and how ethical issues should be handled within organizations. For this reason, it plays a key role in organizational life. We relied on the social identity approach to compare the effects of two specific ethical climates – an ethical climate of self-interest vs. friendship – on employees’ reactions. In two scenario-based experiments ( N 1 = 152 and N 2 = 113), participants were asked to imagine themselves working in an organization described either as characterized by a friendship or a self-interest ethical climate. They completed measures of identification, commitment, perceived organizational morality, turnover intention, recommendation, and the minimum wage they would accept to work for that organization. An ethical climate of friendship predicted better employees’ attitudes and behavioral intentions, and these were mediated by identification with, and commitment to, the organization. In Study 2, participants were less willing to move from an organization characterized by an ethical climate of friendship to a company characterized by an ethical climate of self-interest than vice versa, and asked for more money to accept this new job offer. Results, which confirmed that organizational identification and commitment represent key factors in organizational life, are discussed in terms of practical interventions that promote pro-organizational behavior.

As the literature highlights, many health behavior theories try to explain both social and psychological variables influencing an individual’s health behavior. This study integrates insights relative to the antecedents of getting vaccinated from health behavior theories, particularly including the health belief model (HBM), the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and the different socio-demographic factors. Furthermore, we considered the possible mechanism of impact of distrust in science on individuals’ hesitance and resistance to taking up SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in subjects living in Italy. A correlational study of 1095 subjects enrolled when the national vaccination campaign for the third dose was launched. A questionnaire was used to measure: Italian Risk Perception; subjective norm; trust in science, trust in the vaccine; fear of COVID-19; fear of the vaccine; perceived knowledge about SARS-CoV-2; booster vaccination intention. Principal results show that: (i) the positive relationship provided by HBM theory between perceptions of SARS-CoV-2 risk (vulnerability and severity) and intention to have the vaccine, through fear of COVID-19; (ii) the positive relationship between subjective norms and both trust in science and vaccination intention; (iii) that trust in science plays a crucial role in predicting vaccination intention. Finally, the results provided indications about a positive relationship between subjective norms and fear of COVID-19, and a full mediation role of trust in science in the relationships between determinants of both TPA and HBM, fear of COVID-19, and vaccination intention. In conclusion, an individual’s intention (not) to get vaccinated requires the consideration of a plethora of socio-psychological factors. However, overall, trust in science appears to be a key determinant of vaccination intention. Additional strategies promoting healthy behavior are needed.

Organizational identification (OI) has increasingly attracted scholarly attention as a key factor in understanding organizational processes and in fostering efficient human resource (HR) management. Available evidence shows that organizational ethical climate crucially predicts OI, a key determinant of both employees’ attitudes and behaviors. In the present paper, we examined the relationship between two specific ethical climates (self-interest vs. friendship), distributed leadership (DL), and employees’ attitudes and behaviors, incorporating OI as a core underlying mechanism driving these relationships. Three hundred and forty-two employees filled out questionnaires to examine ethical climate, DL, OI, and a series of measures concerning attitudes and behaviors toward the organization. Structural equation modeling confirmed that a perception of an ethical climate of friendship (but not self-interest) fostered OI, which elicited higher commitment, perceived trust and recommendation, and lower turnover intention. Perception of DL further contributed to increasing OI. Our findings suggest that HR practices should carefully consider employee perceptions of a collectivistic (vs. individualistic) ethical climate, together with perceptions of DL, as key determinants of positive organizational outcomes. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach and present practical implications for HR management.

Social science research has highlighted “honor” as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (the United Kingdom, the United States) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to in-group [vs. out-group] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East–West comparisons to an understudied world region.

Forms of collective leadership, such as distributed leadership, have become increasingly important. The need for measurement of the variables involved in the delegation processes represents a new challenge for organizations that want to ensure highlevel working. The present study aimed to validate the Italian version of the distributed leadership agency (DLA). The study was carried out on 704 employees (doctors, nurses, clerks, staff workers, healthcare assistants, consultants, management) of an Italian public hospital, who were selected to complete a survey on organizational perceptions. Multiple confirmatory factor analyses (maximum likelihood) have been computed to explore the factorial structure of the DLA, along with associations with other work outcomes. Results about the Italian DLA confirmed the original trifactorial structure of the construct, suggested by Yukl (2002), through good fit indexes and reliability scores; moreover, consistent with the literature, DLA was strongly related to satisfaction, commitment, and trust. Results contribute to underline the robustness of the construct of DLA in different cultural sectors and provide a useful tool to be adopted in the Italian context.

Social science research has highlighted ‘honor’ as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (UK, US) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to ingroup [vs. outgroup] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East-West comparisons to an understudied world region.

Recent literature highlights that well-being, happiness, as well as personal stress, has become important for guiding public policy in areas that might involve suboptimal behaviour. Positive life outcomes can extend from one field of life (family, work, sport, children, hobbies, etc.) to another, multiplying success, performance, and health. In the present

The data and syntax that support the findings of this study and produced this manuscript are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/4tyk5/. The current research and analyses were not pre-registered at an independent repository.