A bright side to unethical pro-organizational behavior: Improving work performance by satisfying psychological needs

Despite scholarly efforts to unpack the outcomes of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), its impact has not yet been fully understood. Drawing on self-determination theory, this research advances knowledge about the consequences of UPB by investigating its relationship with psychological needs fulfillment (PNF) and downstream service performance. This research further investigates whether the consequences of UPB are more pronounced among employees with a strong versus weak sense of work meaningfulness. Across a time-lagged multi-source survey (Study 1) and an experiment (Study 2), the results show that UPB is positively associated with PNF, particularly for employees with a strong sense of work meaningfulness, and that this relationship predicts higher in-role service performance and customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, this research reveals a novel bright side to UPB, providing insight into factors motivates UPB and how to mitigate it.