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Our purpose is to move beyond simply reporting significant relationships between perceived fairness and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and, instead, seek to clarify the underlying psychological processes that may explain why they relate. Wefirst reviewtwo general explanations-a social exchangeexplanation, whereemployees perform OCB to reciprocate fair treatment, processes, and outcomes, and a social identity-based explanation, whereemployees perform OCB to support a group in which they feel they belongand to which they feel closely connected. After describing the basic mechanisms that linkfaimess perceptions and OCBfor bothexplanations, we discuss potential mediatorsthat may represent those mechanisms. Examples of such mediators include perceived organizational support, trust, affective organizational commitment, group pride, and respect received from the group. Finally, we …