Unethical employee behavior (UEB), an important organizational phenomenon, is dynamic and multi-faceted. Recent renewed interest in the role of emotion in ethical decision-making (EDM) suggests that unethical behaviors are neither always rationally derived nor deliberately undertaken. This study explores how to integrate the conscious and nonconscious dimensions of unethical decision-making. By broadening the scope of inquiry, we explore how integral affect—the emotion tied to anticipated decision outcomes for the employee engaging in misconduct—can shed light on UEB. We review related literature (...) on affect and EDM and propose a model in which we assert that at a decision point, an employee experiences multiple integral affects that are either persuasive or dissuasive toward UEB. We further posit that among these integral affects, a dominant integral affect (DIA) emerges, determining the nature and direction of unethical behavior. In addition, our model considers the role of affective residue and the influence of other factors, such as incidental affect, disposition, context, and retrospection, to derive propositions. Our DIA model can help managers gain a comprehensive understanding of how affect, characterized by its locus (self or other orientation) and valence (enhancing or harming), determines the characteristics of UEB. (shrink)

Although extant literature has covered the differences between unethical behaviors in relation to perpetrators and targets, most of this research has not considered the effects of observed unethical behaviors on employees. In this study, we focus on observed unethical behaviors of peers targeted at their organization and examine how witnessing a peer engage in an organizationally targeted unethical behavior would impact the observer. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we propose that organizational identification will inform emotions, which in turn will shape (...) employee silence, depending on how employees appraise the observed unethical behavior. We theorize that peer unethical behaviors would induce anger, anxiety, and vicarious shame, which will guide employees’ quiescent and prosocial silence behaviors. In addition, we suggest that the proposed relationships would vary with the level of organizational identification. With a sample of 329, results from a between-subject scenario study generally supported our hypotheses. There was a combined effect of peer unethical behaviors and organizational identification on anger, anxiety, and shame, which in turn led to employee silence in the cases of anxiety and shame. (shrink)

The aim of our special issue is to deepen our understanding of the role moral emotions play in organisations as part of a wider discourse on organisational ethics and morality. Unethical workplace behaviours can have far-reaching consequences—job losses, risks to life and health, psychological damage to individuals and groups, social injustice and exploitation and even environmental devastation. Consequently, determining how and why ethical transgressions occur with surprising regularity, despite the inhibiting influence of moral emotions, has considerable theoretical and practical significance (...) to management scholars and managers alike. In this introduction, we present some of the core arguments in the field; notably, the effect of organisational life and bureaucracy on emotions, in general, and moral emotions, in particular; the moral standing of leaders, managers and followers; moral challenges raised by obedience and resistance to organisational power and ethical blindspots induced by what may appear as deeply moral emotions. These issues are explored by a collection of geographically diverse articles in various work contexts, which are thematically organised in terms of moral emotions, ethical behaviour and social pressure, moral emotions and their consequences within/across levels of analysis, psychoanalytic perspectives on the management of moral emotions, virtue and moral emotions and moral emotions and action tendencies. We end by suggesting certain avenues for future research in the hope that the endeavour initiated here will inspire improved practice at work. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

What do events such as scandals, industrial accidents, activist threats, and mass shootings have in common? They can all trigger an audience’s stigma judgment about the organization involved in the event. Despite the prevalence of these stigma-triggering events, management research has provided little conceptual work to characterize the dimensions and processes of organizational event stigma. This article takes the perspective of the evaluating audience to unpack the stigma judgment process, identify critical dimensions for categorizing types of event stigma, and explore (...) the role of the stigmatizers’ aesthetic, emotional, and cognitive reactions as well as their practical considerations in producing what we call “sticky stigmas.” Our event stigma typology provides clarity regarding how stigmas differ based on the types of events and audiences’ reactions and why some event stigmas are stronger and more long-lasting than others. We highlight the role of emotions and aesthetics in stigma formation and the various ethical dilemmas that influence stigma stickiness. (shrink)

This article contributes to research on emotion expression, attributions, and discrete work emotions by developing an observer-focused model to explain the outcomes of crying at work. Our model is focused on crying as a form of emotion expression because crying may be driven by different felt emotions or be used as a means of manipulation. In addition, the model focuses on observers, who must form perceptions of the emotion expression in order to determine an appropriate response. This model is particularly (...) valuable because it addresses the reality that an observer will develop an impression of another person’s emotion and intention, and that this impression may not always align with the reality of the emotion being experienced by the expresser. (shrink)