When fairness is not enough: impact of corporate ethical values on organizational citizenship behaviors and worker alienation

Abstract

Extant research indicates a positive and significant relationship between corporate ethical values and employees’ job performance. Furthermore, past studies have empirically demonstrated that perceived fairness moderates the influence of corporate ethical values (CEV) on employee performance. In other words, high congruity between employees’ and an organization’s ethical values will result in superior employee performance outcome. This research aims to develop a broader perspective on the complex relationship between CEV and employee outcomes. The article will first examine the direct influence of CEV on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and alienation from work (AFW), and then the moderating role of perceived fairness. The researcher found a significant direct effect of CEV on both OCBs and AFW, but that perceived fairness does not moderate these relationships. A key implication of findings of this research is that although perception of fairness may suppress the impact of organizational ethical transgressions on employee performance in the short run, as earlier studies have demonstrated, but in the long term, implications of perceived fairness are multifold.