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Based on the cognition-affection personality system theory, this study constructs and tests a mediation model of leadership non-contingent punishment on bystander workplace deviance behavior through bystander affective rumination and bystander psychological contract violation, as well as a chain mediation effect of bystander affective rumination and bystander psychological contract violation, and explores the moderation role of bystander performance pressure in this model.

This study takes 454 employees and their colleagues from several Chinese enterprises as the research subjects and conducts a paired survey at three-time points using Mplus 7.4 to analyze the empirical data.

The research results are as follows: Bystander affective rumination and bystander psychological contract violation play a mediation role between leadership non-contingent punishment and bystander workplace deviance behavior, respectively. Bystander affective rumination and bystander psychological contract violation play a chain mediation role in the positive role of leadership non-contingent punishment on bystander workplace deviance behavior. Bystander performance pressure moderates the chain mediation path by enhancing the positive role of leadership non-contingent punishment on bystander affective rumination.

This study comprehensively explores the internal path of the impact of leadership non-contingent punishment on bystander workplace deviance behavior from the perspective of bystanders through dual paths of cognition and affection. It enriches the result variables of leadership non-contingent punishment, expands existing research on the mediation mechanism of leadership non-contingent punishment and deepens the understanding of the mechanism of leadership non-contingent punishment. At the same time, it has practical guidance significance to promote the suppression of leadership non-contingent punishment in organizations, reduce the occurrence of employee workplace deviance behavior, help employees better integrate into the organization and build a harmonious organizational environment.

Based on the Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Stress, this study aims to reveal the mechanism of peer abusive supervision on bystander proactive behavior through two different paths: bystander assertive impression management motivation and bystander defensive impression management motivation. Besides, the moderating effects of bystander uncertainty tolerance on the two paths are also explored.

In this study, 438 employees and their direct leaders from eight Chinese companies were surveyed in a paired survey at three time points, and the empirical data was analyzed using Mplus 7.4 software.

Peer abusive supervision leads bystanders to develop assertive impression management motivation and, thus, to exhibit more proactive behaviors. At the same time, peer abusive supervision also causes bystanders to develop defensive impression management motivation, which reduces the frequency of performing proactive behaviors. In addition, this study finds that bystander uncertainty tolerance plays a moderating role in influencing bystander assertive impression management motivation and bystander defensive impression management motivation in response to peer abusive supervision.

Starting from the bystander perspective, this study verifies the double-edged sword effect of peer abusive supervision on bystander proactive behavior as well as the mechanism of differentiated effects through cognitive appraisal, which broadens the scope of the research on abusive supervision, and deepens the academic understanding and development of the Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Stress. At the same time, it also provides new ideas for organizations to reduce the negative effects of workplace abusive behavior.

Social psychology has focused on an individual’s reaction to emergencies and witnessing a crime, which has developed theories of bystander intervention and bystander apathy. The purpose of this study is to explore why people choose to intervene when they are a bystander to intimate partner violence (IPV) and the psychological processes that underpin this. Decision-making was explored drawing on literature from the whistleblowing field.

Through a mixed methods epistemology, this study explored factors that explained intervening behaviour concerning IPV. In total, 212 participants who had known someone who was a victim of IPV were recruited from the general population.

A logistic regression model indicated that conscientiousness and fairness were found to predict intervening behaviour. Being a child witness was found to predict non-intervening behaviour. Qualitative analysis revealed three types of bystander apathy: those who lacked capability as they were children; those who were indifferent and did not see it as their place to intervene; and those who wanted to intervene but did not as they were frightened of exacerbating the situation.

IPV has significant physical and psychological effects on victims. However, the choice to intervene is complex, and bystander intervention in this study was also associated in some cases with not only a continuation of the IPV behaviour towards the victim but also aggression and physical violence towards the bystander (whistleblower retaliation). Based on the findings of this study, recommendations are made for how to support bystanders and victims of IPV.

This study involved participants with real-life experience of being a bystander to IPV. The mixed methodology provided an insight into the psychological processes, which underpin bystander experiences of IPV and maps onto the literature in relation to whistleblowing.

Online trolling is a detrimental behavior for consumers and service businesses. Although online trolling research is steadily increasing, service research has yet to thoroughly explore how this behavior impacts businesses. Further, the role of bystanders, consumers who witness a victim (business) being trolled, remains largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is thus to introduce online trolling to the service literature and begin to identify when (types of online troll content) and why (empathy and psychological reactance) bystanders are likely to intervene and support a service business being trolled by posting positive eWOM.

This research uses a two-study (Study 1 n = 313; Study 2 n = 472) experimental design with scenarios of a service business experiencing online trolling (moral versus sadistic). Participants' responses as bystanders were collected via an online survey.

Results reveal bystanders are more likely to post positive eWOM to support a service organization experiencing sadistic trolling. Psychological reactance is shown to mediate the relationship between trolling type and positive eWOM. Further, spotlight analysis demonstrates that bystanders with higher levels of empathy are more likely to post positive eWOM, whereas bystanders with low levels of empathy are likely to have a significantly higher level of psychological reactance.

This research is among the first in the service literature to specifically explore the consumer misbehavior of online trolling. Further, it provides new perspectives to online trolling by probing the role of bystanders and when and why they are likely to support service organizations being trolled.

This study aims to explore the spillover effects of supply chain corruption practices (SCCPs) on stock returns along the supply chain and within the industry. Specifically, it investigates how SCCPs affect the stock returns of corrupt firms' bystander supply chain partners and industry peers, both of which are not involved in the SCCPs.

The authors employ the event study methodology to quantify SCCPs' spillover effects in terms of abnormal stock returns. The analysis is based on 117 SCCPs occurring in China between 2014 and 2021.

The event study results show that SCCPs have negative effects on the stock returns of corrupt firms' bystander supply chain partners. Such negative effects are more pronounced for bystander buyers than bystander suppliers. However, SCCPs do not have a significant impact on the stock returns of corrupt firms' industry peers. Additional analysis further suggests that SCCPs are more likely to affect the stock returns of domestic rather than overseas bystander supply chain partners.

This study is the first attempt to thoroughly examine the spillover effects of SCCPs along the supply chain and within the industry, advancing the understanding of the financial consequences of SCCPs and providing important implications for future research and practices related to supply chain corruption.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the mechanism of peer abusive supervision on bystander behavior based on the perspective of bystander from two different paths of bystander empathy and bystander hostility toward supervisor. At the same time, it discusses the moderation effect of bystander traditionality on the two paths.

This study conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey. The data were collected from 454 employees and their coworkers in several Chinese enterprises. The authors used Mplus 7.4 and adopted a bootstrapping technique in the data analysis.

Peer abusive supervision leads bystanders to empathize with the abused colleague and thus exhibit more organizational citizenship behaviors, and peer abusive supervision also induces bystanders to develop hostility toward the abusive supervisor and thus produce more workplace negative gossip behaviors. In addition, it is found that bystander traditionality has a moderation effect in the process by which peer perceptions of abusive supervision influence bystander empathy and bystander hostility.

Based on Affective Events Theory, this study explores the mechanism of colleague perception of abusive supervision on bystander behavior from a bystander perspective. The results of this study not only provide a more comprehensive expansion of the weighting factors in the influence mechanism of abusive supervision but also provide new ideas for organizations to reduce the negative effects of workplace abusive behaviors.

The authors aim to broaden the understanding of incivility through the lens of bystanders who witness incivility toward women. Integrating attributional ambiguity and emotional contagion theories with the literature on workplace mistreatment, the authors propose that witnessing incivility toward women may negatively impact bystanders.

The authors collected multi-wave data from 324 employees to assess the consequences of witnessing incivility toward women at work for bystanders.

Utilizing a serial mediation model, the authors found evidence that witnessing incivility toward women indirectly increased turnover intentions six weeks later, first through elevated negative affect and then through increased cognitive burnout.

Taken together, this study's findings suggest that the negative effects of incivility toward women can spread to bystanders and highlight the importance of considering individuals who are not directly involved, but simply bear witness to incivility at work.

Despite growing interest in misconduct spillovers – where unimplicated bystanders’ stock prices, reputations, resources, and opportunities are positively or negatively affected by others’ misconduct – theory about spillovers’ antecedents has largely focused on industry or product similarity, and has used the same characteristics to argue for both positive and negative spillovers. Furthermore, limited research has considered both positive and negative spillovers together, instead focusing on one kind of spillover or the other in isolation, thereby creating a lack of theoretical integration within the literature. In this chapter, we draw on attribution theory and expectancy violations theory to explain when and how misconduct incurs positive and negative spillovers. We argue that a spillover’s valence depends on the locus of attributions made by stakeholders, where the misconduct’s causes are attributed to the perpetrator alone (i.e., an isolated attribution) – resulting in positive spillovers – or the misconduct’s causes are perceived as indicative of a systemic problem shared among a broader set of organizations (i.e., a systemic attribution), leading to negative spillovers. We further suggest that the misconduct’s nature and misconduct prevalence within a perpetrator and among other firms influences stakeholders’ attributions, and ultimately the spillover’s valence. Our theory contributes to the organizational misconduct literature by providing a unifying theoretical framework to understand both positive and negative spillovers.

The purpose of this empirical research is to investigate the influence of interactive virtually present others (VPOs) on a firm response and customers’ reiterated complaints (follow-ups) during service failures. This research follows up on previous experimental studies that suggest VPOs affect the focal customers’ complaint intention.

More than 16,000 posts (of complaints and complainants’ follow-ups) on 13 airline Facebook pages were analyzed using partial least squares.

This empirical study found that customers’ complaints are attended to the extent the complaints are followed up with more comments as supported by VPOs suggesting a contagion effect. Besides, it appears, the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease. The interactive virtual presence of others does not have an effect on a firm response toward them, despite their support to complainants and calling the airline to act.

To date, previous experimental studies have only featured a single VPO in potential complainants’ responses; however, in this empirical study the authors take into consideration the interaction of several VPOs in the service failure. Also, the focus is on the influence of VPOs on customers' complaints rather than the other way around.

Consumers are increasingly choosing social media over other channels and mechanisms for grievance redressal. However, not all social media grievances elicit a response from businesses. Hence, in this research the authors aim to explore the effect of the complainant's social characteristics and the complaint's social and content characteristics on the likelihood of receiving a response to a grievance from the business on social media.

The authors build a conceptual model and then empirically test it to explore the effect of the complainant's characteristics and the complaint's characteristics on the likelihood of response from a business on social media. The authors use data of consumer grievances received by an Indian airline operator on Twitter during two time periods – the first corresponding to lockdown during Covid-19 pandemic, and the second corresponding to the resumption of business as usual following these lockdowns. The authors use logistic regression and the hazard rate model to model the likelihood of response and the response delay, respectively, for social media customer grievances.

Complainants with high social influence are not more likely to get a response for their grievances on social media. While tagging other individuals and business accounts in a social media complaint has negative effect on the likelihood of business response in both the time periods, the effect of tagging regulatory bodies on the likelihood of response was negative only in the Covid-19 lockdown period. The readability and valence of a complaint were found to positively affect the likelihood of response to a social media grievance. However, the effect of valence was significant only in lockdown period.

This research offers insights on what elicits responses from a service provider to consumers' grievances on social media platforms. The extant literature is a plenty on how firms should be engaging consumers on online media and how online communities should be built, but scanty on grievance redressal on social media. This research is, therefore, likely to be useful to service providers who are inclined to improve their grievance handling mechanisms, as well as, to regulatory authorities and ombudsmen.