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During the early SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated masks “may not protect the wearer, but it may keep the wearer from spreading the virus to others”. Health officials revised mask guidelines to include both the wearer and others, but contradiction became a focal point for online debate and credibility. While revised policies eventually became adopted by the public, there was loss time and lives during this critical stage. This study investigates collectivist messaging on public policy support.

COVID-19 public policy hypocrisy was defined as the gap between supporting community policies while rejecting policies more likely to impact the individual. United States participants (N = 1,605) completed questionnaires. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted using SPSS PROCESS.

Those high on collectivism and high on global personal impact associated with lower COVID-19 public policy hypocrisy. These individuals indicated consistent support for community and individual policies, likely requiring personal sacrifices. Indirect conditional effects of lower conscientiousness associated with higher hypocrisy among those collectivistic.

Participants evaluated preference to original public safety ads, representative of basic societal and individual benefits. Those higher on collectivism preferred societal “we” versus individual “me” public safety ads. Implications discuss benefits of personal and communal public health messaging in an individualistic society so businesses can reopen. Entrepreneurs experienced major economic setbacks that effective public health policies could have mitigated.

Law enforcement agents enforce rules that they might transgress in their private lives. Building from a theory of “hypocrisy aversion” where agents incur psychological costs from imposing a sanction on others for rules that they might break, the authors design a two-player game in which players are simultaneously placed in the roles of enforcer and potential transgressor. In this model, discretionary enforcement is endogenous to the size of the sanction. Conditional on rewards to enforcement and punishment that are both sufficiently small in the status quo, the authors demonstrate that price effects can be dominated by second-order hypocrisy effects, leading to rates of transgression that increase with larger sanctions. The authors test the model within a laboratory experiment where individuals can simultaneously gamble at the expense of a third party and punish those they observe gambling. Examining the comparable testable predictions of models of (i) selfish agents, (ii) pro-social agents, and (iii) pro-social agents who are averse to hypocrisy, the authors find evidence of hypocrisy aversion in the rates of gambling, sanctioning, and the changing composition of agent strategies. Our results suggest that increasing sanctions can backfire in the deterrence of common criminal and non-criminal offenses.

This paper explores how the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) conflicts with annual budgeting and how University actors responded to such conflicting demands in a public university in Tanzania, a developing country.

The data for this study were collected from interviews, observations and document reviews. Data analysis processes were guided by the concepts of organizational façades and organized hypocrisy.

The findings show that while the state required the university to implement the MTEF, budget preparers and managers were concentrating on basic budgeting problems in annual budgeting. As a result of these conflicting demands decoupling occurred, as there were inconsistencies between the talk and actions of actors in MTEF implementation. In response, actors engaged in organized hypocrisy. The talk and actions were organized by developing pro-effective and symbolic layers. The pro-effective layer showed that actors were concentrating on annual budgeting, while the symbolic layer, through the creation of façades, showed that actors symbolically implemented the MTEF.

The paper suggests that budgetary reforms of governments, Western donors, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and bilateral donors should focus on addressing the basic problems in annual budgeting rather than advocating complex reforms that compel actors to engage in hypocrisy and developing façades. Moreover, university management should address basic budgeting problems to avoid budgeting games during annual budgeting.

This is the first paper to employ the concept of organized hypocrisy to investigate the MTEF. By demonstrating the pro-effective layer, the paper responds to the call for investigation of how accounting works in practice (van Helden et al., 2021). Moreover, by presenting the symbolic layer, the paper responds to the call to investigate how facades are created (Michelon et al., 2016). The paper demonstrates how the concept of organized hypocrisy works well with the concept of organizational facades.

The theoretical understanding of CSR is caught on the horns of the dilemma between the ethical and instrumental approaches. The strategic turn in CSR has brought the dilemma to a new head. The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel argumentative strategy to address the dilemma.

The paper weaves together the insights from the literatures on sociological institutionalism, organization theory, business ethics and institutional economics to elaborate the distinction between CSR communication and CSR action that is actually undertaken and visible to stakeholders. This distinction is at the core of the “hypocrisy avoidance” approach which puts the above dilemma in a new light.

According to the “hypocrisy avoidance” approach, the CSR communication constitutes a competitive arena where corporations are looking for reputational gains. Competitive pressures give rise to an inflationary dynamics of the CSR communication which consequently runs up against credibility problems. These problems are addressed by the real CSR policies which legitimate the corporate employment of the CSR communication as an instrument of competition.

The theoretical dilemma between the ethical and instrumental approaches manifests itself in the justification of skepticism toward CSR communication. This skepticism, which may be to the detriment of a corporation’s license to operate, may turn out to be a driving force of CSR action.

Despite the charges of corporate hypocrisy, CSR communication may play a role in the alleviation of business-society tensions. This role is however subject to two limitations. First, if CSR communication is used as instrument of competition, it is unlikely to translate into CSR action perfectly. Second, corporations would likely prioritize more visible CSR actions over less visible ones.

The novel implication of the “hypocrisy avoidance” approach is that CSR actions present credible commitments or “hostages” enabling the productive interaction between corporations and their stakeholders. This implication integrates some of the components of the ethical and instrumental approaches, while drawing inspiration from the institutional economics and institutional ethics literatures.

This study aims to examine biodiversity reporting by South African food producers and retailers. It not only draws attention to the disconnect between reporting on an important environmental issue and the sense of commitment to environmental responsibility, but also shows that over time, organisations are becoming more proactive about biodiversity reporting.

The research uses a content analysis of sustainability and integrated reports and organised hypocrisy as a theoretical framework for analysing biodiversity-related disclosures.

Consistent with an organised hypocrisy framework, the research finds that the several companies rely on corporate reporting to emphasise actions and internal management strategies that are already producing favourable results. In contrast, mission statements, firm policy commitments and forward-looking analysis are avoided. There is, however, evidence to suggest that the gaps between corporate reporting and action may be giving companies the time to reform their practices, align biodiversity disclosures with genuine corporate action and move towards truly integrated business models.

Poor biodiversity reporting raises questions about the extent to which companies are managing serious environmental issues that can have a direct impact on their business models. Improvements in biodiversity reporting also suggest that corporate reporting is maturing and that some organisations are beginning to understand the need for managing their biodiversity impact.

The paper offers empirical evidence on how the disconnect between organisational rhetoric and action is used to manage stakeholder expectations and negate the need for environmental reforms. In this manner, organised hypocrisy is framed as a specific legitimisation strategy. The research also shows that organised hypocrisy is not absolute; despite the opportunity to engage in organised hypocrisy, some companies are taking a more proactive approach to biodiversity reporting. As a result, it may be appropriate to see organised hypocrisy as part of a transition to higher quality integrated or sustainability reporting.

The disconnect between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) rhetoric and the practical reality experienced within companies calls for improved CSR evaluation systems that take into account the hypocrisy content of the firm's communication. The aim of this article is to contribute to the conceptual underpinning of a sincerity/hypocrisy index that positions an organization on a continuum from idealism to cynicism.

Starting with the analysis of the reasons for the dissonance between message and reality, the drivers of ethical corporate behavior, the intention of the actors and the intensity of effort and of corporate communication were analysed.

The analysis of the reasons for dissonance between message and reality sheds light on the role of communication in the perception of hypocrisy. An underlying model of a sincerity/hypocrisy index is proposed to position the firm on a continuum from idealism to hypocrisy in function of the degree of congruence or dissonance between communication and reality.

This concept of sincerity index could form a valuable basis for the development of new evaluation instruments for rating agencies, screening institutions and other evaluation bodies.

The instrument can help management to concentrate on the essence of CSR: the effective implementation of a corporate culture with attention for values and responsible business practices.

This paper aims to investigate a new predictor of knowledge hiding, namely, employee perceptions of corporate hypocrisy (PCH). Based on the social cognitive theory, this study constructs a moderated mediation model linking PCH and knowledge hiding. The theoretical model concentrates on the mediating role of moral identity and the moderating role of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE).

Two studies with different samples and designs were used. In Study 1, the experimental method explored whether PCH could elicit knowledge hiding under the condition of OBSE (H1 and H4). Study 2, an empirical method with three stages, tested the full mediated moderation model by adding to the mediating role of moral identity (H1–H4).

The results showed: PCH was positively related to knowledge hiding, moral identity mediated the influence of PCH on knowledge hiding and OBSE not only moderated the relationship between PCH and moral identity but also moderated the indirect effect of PCH on knowledge hiding (via moral identity). The present research sheds valuable light on the processes (how) and contingencies (when) whereby PCH affects knowledge hiding for the first time, thus extending prior research and encouraging further explorations on the topic of PCH and knowledge hiding. It informs practitioners that taking measures to decrease corporate hypocrisy plays a vital role in preventing workers from hiding knowledge.

The study’s distinctive contribution is to examine the mediating effect of moral identity and the moderating role of OBSE on the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and knowledge hiding, which through the lens of social cognitive theory. Thus, it furthers a deeper understanding of knowledge hiding and helps the organization understand the dynamics of knowledge management, such as prohibiting employee counterproductive behaviors in the workplace.

The climate crisis presents a global threat. Research shows the necessity of joint communication efforts across different arenas—media, politics, business, academia and protest—to address this threat. However, communication about social change in response to the climate crisis comes with challenges. These challenges manifest, among others, in public accusations of inconsistency in terms of hypocrisy and incapability against self-declared change agents in different arenas. This increasingly turns public climate communication into a “blame game”.

Strategic communication scholarship has started to engage in this debate, thereby acknowledging climate communication as an arena-spanning, necessarily contested issue. Still, a systematic overview of specific inconsistency accusations in different public arenas is lacking. This conceptual article provides an overview based on a macro-focused public arena approach and decoupling scholarship.

Drawing on a systematic literature review of climate-related strategic communication scholarship and key debates from climate communication research in neighboring domains, the authors develop a framework mapping how inconsistency accusations of hypocrisy and incapacity, that is, policy–practice and means–ends decoupling, manifest in different climate communication arenas.

This framework creates awareness for the shared challenge of decoupling accusations across different climate communication arenas, underscoring the necessity of an arena-spanning strategic communication agenda. This agenda requires a communicative shift from downplaying to embracing decoupling accusations, from mutual blaming to approval of accountable ways of working through accusations and from confrontation to cooperation of agents across arenas.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on perceived corporate reputation. In addition, the effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) in mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism toward perceived corporate reputation.

An experimental design was employed to test the effects of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on consumers’ perception of a firm’s corporate reputation, as well as the role of perceived CSR as a causal mechanism. Analysis involved structural equation modeling (AMOS) to test hypotheses. A convenience sample (n=837) was recruited from the USA and Australia to allow for any national biases or brand familiarity effects and to ensure the results were robust and generalizable.

Corporate hypocrisy and consumers’ skepticism significantly influences perceived CSR and corporate reputation. Furthermore, a consumer’s level of perceived CSR acts as a causal mechanism, mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and skepticism on perceived corporate reputation.

The importance of being transparent and honest toward consumers. When companies are inconsistent in their CSR activities, it increases consumers’ skepticism toward the brand. Nonetheless, CSR has a positive influence on the consumers’ perception of corporate reputation and this, in turn, will positively influences consumers’ support for the firm.

The first empirical evidence that companies producing vices (such as beer) generate lower expectations in the minds of the consumers, meaning there is less impact on brand reputation when consumers feel the CSR does not fit with the brand image.