How Identity Work Drives Ethical Conduct in Organizations: The Case of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Michaela Driver ()
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Michaela Driver: The University of Texas at El Paso

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 200, issue 4, No 8, 897-909

Abstract: Abstract The study examines how identities in general and moral identities in particular are related to ethical behavior in organizations and what aspects of such identities might drive actual ethical conduct versus only the appearance of such conduct. The study develops a psychoanalytic, specifically Lacanian, framework with which to explore such dynamics and illustrates this empirically by analyzing how employees from a range of organizations narrate their identities as good organizational citizens. The findings reveal that how individuals position themselves regarding common struggles with self and desire affects how much they are confined to appearing to be ethical rather than to act ethically. The study discusses the implications of these findings offering new avenues for understanding organizational citizenship behavior, how ethical conduct in organizations can be explored from an identity perspective and how psychoanalysis may be foundational for the study of ethics.

Keywords: Ethics; Identity; Moral identity; Organizational citizenship behavior; Psychoanalysis; Lacan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05880-z

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