The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades have fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs), and Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs). Structural equation modeling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were independently related to organizational identification and moral disengagement. These, in turn, mediated the effects of ethical climates on OCBs and CWBs. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach, and present some practical implications of our findings.

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.

This article examines the influence of moral evaluations and attribution of responsibility on individuals' willingness to provide help if witnessing an intimate partner violence (IPV) episode. A total of 121 undergraduates read a fictitious article from a newspaper, allegedly describing an IPV episode. According to the experimental condition, participants read that the victim had either admitted infidelity or denied it. After reading the newspaper article, participants evaluated the victim on several dimensions (i.e., morality, competence, and sociability), rated the extent to which they deemed her responsible for the violence (i.e., the internal attribution of what happened), and expressed their willingness to provide help and support to the victim herself. In the admission condition, the victim was evaluated as less moral and more responsible for the episode of IPV. These evaluations, in turn, lowered the willingness to provide help to the victim. This study confirmed the role of moral evaluations and internal attribution on bystanders' reaction, and we present practical implications for intervention in a field, IPV, in constant need of updated validated evidence for efficient prevention strategies.

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