Ethical Behavior in Organizations: Personal Values and the Moderating Role of Ethical Climate in Counterproductive Work Behavior and Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Ethical climate flips the same values toward either helping or rule-breaking.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Salgado et al. (2026) asked 212 workers to fill out surveys twice. They wanted to see if the company’s ethical climate changes how personal values shape daily work choices.
The team tracked who helped coworkers and who broke rules. They split climates into "look out for yourself" or "do the right thing."
What they found
The same value can lead to opposite acts. In a principled climate, honesty turns into extra help. In an egoism climate, the same honesty drops and rule-bending rises.
Climate acts like a switch that steers values toward good or bad deeds.
How this fits with other research
Tourinho et al. (2011) say private thoughts come from public cues. Salgado shows those cues can be the unwritten "how we do things here" rules.
Eckard et al. (2020) warn against invisible clocks. Salgado stays practical by measuring real settings, not hidden traits.
Together, the three papers push you to look at the room, not the person, when behavior drifts.
Why it matters
You can’t swap a staff member’s values in one training. You can swap the cues they see every day. Post the code of ethics on the wall. Model helping acts in front of them. Praise others for following rules. These small climate tweaks turn existing values into the behaviors you want tomorrow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study analyzes the relationship between personal values and (un)ethical behavior in organizations, and the moderating role of perceived ethical climate. We integrate Schwartz’s theory of personal values with the Victor and Cullen model of ethical climate, following the recent reformulation proposed by Weber and Opoku-Dakwa, thereby offering a novel perspective not previously explored in empirical research. Relying on the Person–Organization Fit model, we test whether perceived ethical climate (specifically Egoism and Principled dimensions) moderates the relationship between personal values (Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement) and (un)ethical behavior, operationalized by Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). To this end, we conducted a semi-longitudinal study involving a heterogeneous sample of workers from different organizations (Wave 1: N = 212; Wave 2: N = 84). The analyses supported that personal values and ethical climate are associated with (un)ethical behavior. Furthermore, significant interaction effects between ethical climate and personal values predicting CWB and OCB were found. This study contributes to a better understanding and management of ethical behavior, providing a theoretical contribution and plausible practical guidelines from a person-in-context approach. Limitations and challenges of this work are discussed.
Behavioral Sciences, 2026 · doi:10.3390/bs16030389