Is ‘Be Yourself’ Always the Best Advice?: The Roles of Employee Vigor and Team Ethical Climate

Abstract

Prior scholars (Cable & Kay, 2012) have noted that some individuals tend to reveal their true selves more than others by behaving in alignment with their self-concepts. In the present study, we investigated how self-verification striving serves to increase employee vigor, ultimately leading to better job performance. Results of a multilevel, two-wave study involving 222 employee-supervisor pairs revealed that self-verification striving increased employees’ physical, cognitive, and emotional vigor. In addition, physical and cognitive vigor significantly mediated the relationship between self- verification striving and job performance. Moreover, we found that ethical climate significantly moderated both the direct relationship between self-verification striving and physical and emotional vigor and the indirect effect of self-verification striving on job performance through these mediators. We also found that these effects were stronger in employees working in teams with a strong ethical climate than those with an unethical climate. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the self-verification and ethics literatures.