The paradox of the unethical organizational citizen: the link between organizational citizenship behavior and unethical behavior at work

• Employees often engage in both organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB).
• A growing body of work suggests that OCB may sometimes lead to CWB and unethical behavior.
• We review five lines of research that support a link from OCB to CWB and unethical behavior.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is discretionary employee behavior that facilitates the performance of coworkers and the organization, while counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is discretionary employee behavior that harms the performance of coworkers and the organization. CWB includes a number of behaviors that are unethical in nature, and it is often considered antithetical to OCB. However, recent research indicates that OCB could be causally related to unethical behavior in certain circumstances. Specifically, this work suggests that ‘good soldiers’ who engage in OCB may subsequently behave like ‘bad apples’ and engage in unethical behavior. In this paper, we discuss five explanations for a possible causal connection between these behaviors: (1) resource depletion; (2) moral licensing; (3) injustice and anger; (4) citizenship pressure; and (5) impression management. We also suggest some avenues for future research in this area.