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The paper aims to study how shame, guilt and fear experienced by failing employees determine their explanation of the failure.

Employees participated in two studies, one assessing actual personal examples of failures and another used imaginary vignettes. To manipulate the extent to which guilt or shame was the dominant emotion experienced by the failing employee, participants were asked to generate counterfactual thoughts typical of each of these feelings. Fear was manipulated by describing a threatening atmosphere in the organization. Measured was the likelihood that the employee took responsibility for what happened and provided a valid explanation. Likelihood of explaining the event by using excuses, justifications, concessions or denials was also measured.

Findings indicate guilt was associated with explanations that help the organization learn from the failure and assist employees in restoring their relationships with the organization and co‐workers. Heightened levels of fear, however, decreased this desirable effect of guilt. Shame had no unique contribution to an employee's choice of explanations.

The use of self‐reports and vignettes limits the ecological validity of the present findings. Nevertheless, it provides preliminary evidence for the importance of the factors under study.

These findings contribute to an understanding of the ways organizations can provide emotional settings conductive to constructive failure inquiries both for organizations and employees.

The role emotions play in explanation of failures is an understudied issue both in social psychology and organizational research. The present study opens an avenue for more studies in this direction.

The aim of this chapter is to define and explore the group of emotions known as self-conscious emotions. The state of the knowledge on guilt, shame, pride, and embarrassment is reviewed, with particular attention paid to research on these four self-conscious emotions in work and organizational settings. Surprisingly little research on self-conscious emotions comes from researchers interested in occupational stress and well-being, yet these emotions are commonly experienced and may be a reaction to or even a source of stress. They may also impact behaviors and attitudes that affect stress and well-being. I conclude the review with a call for more research on these emotions as related to stress and well-being, offering some suggestions for areas of focus.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how abstract vs concrete mindsets impact consumers’ post-purchase affective states. Drawing on construal level theory, the study examines when consumers experience “pleasure” or “guilt” after impulse buying.

The basic premises of this research was tested using multiple studies. Study 1 was conducted in the field, the second study engaged an online survey, while the third study used a laboratory experiment.

After impulse buying, consumers with abstract mindsets reported strong feelings of pleasure, whereas those with concrete mindsets experienced profound guilt.

Research on affective responses (i.e. pleasure and guilt) following impulse purchase is limited. However, the present study helps understand an important research question: when do consumers feel pleasure (or guilt) after impulse buying?

Marketers can frame messages that align with abstract mindsets to enhance pleasure and reduce guilt after impulse buying.

Policymakers can persuade consumers to refrain from making impulsive decisions through communication that reminds them of past impulse purchase behaviour, by triggering a concrete mindset.

This research extends the literature on post-purchase effects by demonstrating that consumers’ mindsets determine the intensity of their affective state after impulse buying.

For as long as luxury has existed, it has been criticized, by philosophers and moralists, who condemn self-indulgence, hedonism and vanity. Yet these concerns have not prevented the remarkable expansion of the luxury sector, evidence that most buyers revel in unashamed luxury. Modern economists point out the link between the development of the luxury market and the growth of social inequality. This study aims to assess how much guilt consumers feel during luxury purchases and identify its levers.

Based on 3,162 real luxury buyers from 6 countries, both Asian and western, emerging and mature luxury markets, a partial least squares-structural equation models (PLS-SEM) analysis assesses the level of guilt experienced during luxury purchases and identifies which drivers most impact guilt.

This study assesses the presence of a little guilt among a significant portion of luxury buyers across countries. Two countries present extreme scores: the USA (55.6%) and Japan (32%). Overall, the main driver of guilt is that luxury makes economic inequality highly visible; interestingly the pursuit of hedonism reduces the feelings of guilt.

These findings have notable implications for luxury companies as the long-term success of this sector would be questionable if it attracts social criticism and induces distressing feelings among clients.

Luxury brands need to implement guilt reducing communication strategies.

The luxury sector as a whole should redefine its purpose and mission.

This level of guilt experienced during purchases rarely has been investigated in prior luxury research. Yet luxury addresses larger targets, from the happy few to the happy many. Thanks to PLS-SEM modelization, the same hierarchy of guilt driving factors is revealed across countries.

This paper aims to examine, building upon affect balance theory, whether the two modes of luxury consumption, conspicuous consumption (CC) and style consumption (SC), trigger consumers’ mixed emotions of pleasure and guilt and whether the mixed emotions interactively as well as independently influence consumer loyalty to repurchase luxury.

Using an online survey and seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) analysis, the authors test the hypotheses and assess the parallel (double) mediation effects of pleasure and guilt on the relationships between luxury consumption and repurchase intention.

The authors confirm the relationships between CC and pleasure (+), between SC and pleasure (+), between CC and guilt (+) and between SC and guilt (−); the independent effects of pleasure (+) and guilt (−) on repurchase intention (RI); and the interaction effect of pleasure and guilt on RI (+). The authors further demonstrate that both pleasure and guilt mediate the relationship between CC and RI, whereas only pleasure mediates the relationship between SC and RI.

Future researchers may consider possible mixed emotions other than pleasure and guilt and further explore the dynamics between mixed consumer emotions and consumer loyalty in diverse consumption contexts.

The authors suggest luxury marketers to reduce consumer guilt by promoting SC and by maximizing consumer pleasure, which will lead to greater repurchase intention.

Prior research focused on either the positive or negative side of consumer emotion. The authors fill in the research void by examining whether mixed emotions coexist in luxury consumption and how they interplay and influence consumer loyalty.

Past research on cause-related marketing (CRM) suggests that these socially beneficial initiatives are more effective when linked with hedonic than utilitarian products. Little is known, however, about the process underpinning this effect. This paper aims to investigate why and under what circumstances CRM enhances the appeal of hedonic products by testing the mediation of guilt and introducing the moderating role of cause-product fit.

The authors test a model of moderated mediation in two studies. Study 1 shows that the effectiveness of combining CRM with hedonic consumption is explained by the mediating role of feelings of guilt. Study 2 demonstrates that this mediation depends on the level of fit or congruency between the cause and the product.

Results suggest that CRM campaigns offer the opportunity to improve the consumption experiences of hedonic products by reducing the feelings of guilt intrinsically connected with these options. Moreover, fit moderates the emotional processes activated by CRM initiatives. When fit is high, CRM reduces guilt and improves consumers’ experiences when purchasing hedonic alternatives.

The study extends current understanding of how CRM can promote hedonic consumption and contributes further to research on guilt as an emotion able to promote responsible consumption decisions. Moreover, the study introduces and tests the impact of cause-product fit in predicting consumers’ ethical purchase intention. For managers of hedonic brands, the study offers important implications on how to deploy CRM campaigns to foster better customer experiences.

Consumer purchase decisions can be influenced by many emotions, including guilt. Guilt which enters into the consumer purchase decision is identified as “consumer guilt” and may provide opportunities for marketers to influence the consumer decision process. A negative emotion which results from a consumer decision that violates one′s values or norms, explores the consumer guilt construct in a series of focus groups. The groups were composed of subjects representing various age, religious affiliation, occupation, and income groups. Four types of consumer guilt were identified: financial; health; moral; and financial responsibility. Consumer guilt is further classified in terms of anticipatory and reactive states, occurring in both decisions to purchase as well as not to purchase, and as it relates to focus on oneself or others.

Research on the service recovery paradox (SRP) effect has indicated that after recovery from failures in customer service, customers will commonly rate their satisfaction higher than prior to the service failure. However, thus far there has been little research on the cause of this phenomenon. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of “guilt” emotions in the context of consumer service.

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from 532 undergraduate, graduate students and the general people.

The results of the experiments demonstrate that if customers are compensated for service failures by receiving better than anticipated service, they will commonly experience feelings of “guilt.” In an attempt to alleviate this guilt, customers will project their feelings in evaluating a company, and will rate their customer satisfaction more highly. In doing so, the customer feels relief in reciprocating the kindness of the firm; in this way, the firm wins over the customer’s heart.

This is one of the first studies to discuss the effect of guilt in the SRP effect. This research shows that relying on the emotion of “guilt” for receiving exceptional service helps companies to overcome service failures and successfully rebuild their relationships with customers.

Based on the authors’ study, the purpose of this paper is to establish a foundation for assessing and deciding the most feasible corruption prevention activities with significant impact in reducing corruption in the Indonesian public sector. To accomplish this objective, this paper applies multiple theoretical perspectives simultaneously to better understand the behavioral aspects of corruption prevention strategy in Indonesia.

This paper is part of the authors’ study to assess the corruption problem in the Indonesian public sector in the past decade primarily through examination of major corruption cases to highlight various behavioral issues that became the root causes of rampaging corruption in the country. This paper also discusses how such issues undermine the effectiveness of the existing corruption prevention strategy as well as how to properly address them.

The authors establish that there are numerous overlooked behavioral issues that have rendered existing corruption prevention measures in the Indonesian public sector ineffective in hampering the regeneration of corruption. Gaining sufficient understanding on how public officials’ view on corruption is shaped by their culture and society is crucial in ascertaining what needs to be done to prevent corruption from reoccurring in the future. This study demonstrates that transformative learning needs to be systematically carried out to re-engineer organizational mindset to make it intolerant to corruption which includes unlearning the embedded knowledge of corruption. To support the execution of organizational unlearning discernment must be exercised to enable anti-corruption messages to be sent to the target groups. Nevertheless, due to various inherent behavioral issues within the Indonesian public institutions stimulating anti-corruption discernment is in itself a profound challenge. To promote anti-corruption discernment in the Indonesian public sector, this study proposes the Shame-oriented Anti-corruption Discernment Stimulation (SADS) which focuses on the “management of shame” in stimulating anti-corruption discernment within public institutions in Indonesia.

This study is self-funded and is relying primarily on documentary analysis in highlighting the behavioral issues that determine the success and failure of corruption prevention strategy in Indonesia. Future studies may benefit from interviews with experts in Indonesian culture as well as indigenous people who can offer a broader view on how self-conscious emotions such as shame and guilt are actually experienced in different regions in Indonesia.

This paper contributes to the development of corruption prevention strategy by proposing a framework for systematically stimulating anti-corruption discernment within organizations that are part of collectivistic societies.

This paper highlights the importance of behavior-oriented approaches in mitigating corruption in the Indonesian public sector.

In response to scholarly calls, the study aims to extend and magnify the existing understanding by unravelling the differential impact of anticipated emotions on green practice adoption intention through a proposed model by integrating anticipated pride and guilt in the same continuum along with values (altruistic, biospheric and egoistic) on an employee's attitude.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data randomly from 307 employees and middle-level executives of three subsidiaries of CIL through the simple random sampling (SRS) technique. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Results demonstrate that anticipated guilt influences individual cognitions and future ecological decision-making through improved attitude and higher concern for the environment while pride influences only through improved attitude. Other than biospheric and altruistic values, anticipated guilt is a direct and important antecedent of concern. Altruistic values are more influential predictors of environmental intentions in comparison to biospheric values. At the same time, environmental concern is more robust in predicting eco-intentions than attitude.

It makes notable difference from other studies by not only exploring the validity of the relationship between values on attitude and environmental concern but has also considered anticipated emotions of pride and guilt together alongside values on the same continuum as an antecedent of environmental attitude and concern towards employees’ green behavioural intention at the workplace. The findings are believed to provide a common consensus on differential effects of different states of emotions on environmental concern and attitude.