General ethical judgments, perceived organizational support, interactional justice, and workplace deviance

Abstract

This study focused on the relationships between individual differences in ethical judgments and workplace deviance. In addition, the moderating roles of perceived organizational support (POS) and interactional justice (IJ) on the relationships were investigated. The results indicated that the judgments of actively benefiting from illegal activities and passively benefiting at the expense of others were positively related to interpersonal and organizational deviance. The judgments of actively benefiting from questionable actions were positively related to interpersonal deviance only. For the moderating effects, the higher the POS, the weaker the influence of the judgments of actively benefiting from questionable actions on interpersonal deviance; the higher the IJ that an employee perceived, the weaker the influence of the judgments of passively benefiting at the expense of others on interpersonal deviance. Some managerial implications were also discussed.