Ethical Culture, Ethical Intent, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Moderating and Mediating Role of Person-Organization Fit

A multidimensional measure of ethical culture (EC) was examined for its relationship to person-organization (P-O) fit, ethical intent and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using a sample of 525 employees from the financial industry in Spain. As hypothesized, relative to studies using unidimensional assessments, our measure of EC was more strongly related to ethical intent and organizational citizenship. Also, significant differences were found in the degree to which each the EC dimensions related to both ethical intent and OCB. Finally, in a first for the literature, we demonstrated the important role of overall P-O fit in connection with EC, ethical intent, and organizational citizenship. Specifically, as hypothesized, P-O fit moderated positively the association between EC and ethical intent, but mediated the EC-OCB relationship.