Research on unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) has predominantly focused on its antecedents, while overlooking how engaging in such behavior might affect employees’ psychological experience and their downstream work behaviors. Integrating cognitive dissonance theory with the moral identity literature, we argue that engaging in UPB restricts moral identity internalization as a result of attempts to alleviate the cognitive dissonance about moral self-regard, which in turn translates into decreased organizational citizenship behavior and increased counterproductive workplace behavior. Moreover, employees’ construal level weakens these indirect effects by alleviating the negative effect of engaging in UPB on moral identity internalization. The results from one experimental study and one multi-wave, multisource field study provide support for these predictions. Our research extends knowledge on the negative consequences of UPB for actors and organizations.

对不道德的亲组织行为 (UPB) 的研究主要集中在其前因上，而忽略了参与此类行为可能如何影响员工的心理体验及其下游工作行为。将认知失调理论与道德认同文献相结合，我们认为参与 UPB 限制了道德认同内化，因为试图缓解关于道德自尊的认知失调，这反过来又转化为减少的组织公民行为和增加适得其反的工作场所行为. 此外，员工的解释水平通过减轻参与UPB对道德认同内化的负面影响来削弱这些间接影响。一项实验研究和一项多波的结果，多源实地研究为这些预测提供支持。我们的研究扩展了关于 UPB 对参与者和组织的负面影响的知识。