Abstract: Employees are often socialized to regulate and conceal their true selves in the workplace. Such inauthentic displays not only make the employees stressful, but also bring substantial loss to the companies. Recently, management scholars have paid an increasing attention to authenticity at work. Prior research has mainly taken a self-based perspective to examine personal authenticity. Nevertheless, authenticity has a relational orientation. To extend the current literature, therefore, this research adopted a socio-relational perspective to propose the concept of interpersonal authenticity. Moreover, grounding on the review of the current literature, a comprehensive model was developed to understand how interpersonal authenticity may influence coworker interactions and employee performance within work team. The research model helps us clarify how and when employees may benefit from their interpersonal authenticity, providing practical implications in building a work environment that encourages employees to be authentic.

Key words: interpersonal authenticity, coworker interactions, socio-relational perspective