Search results

Although supplier-initiated punishment is widely used to manage distributors’ opportunism, its spillover effect on unpunished distributors (i.e. observers) within the same distribution network remains under-researched. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the curvilinear effect of punishment severity on an observer’s opportunism, and how such an effect is contingent on the observer’s network position.

This paper uses regression analysis with survey data gathered from 218 distributors in China’s automobile industry.

Punishment severity has an inverted U-shaped effect on the observers’ opportunism, and such effect is weakened by both the observers’ network centrality and their degree of dependence on the supplier.

The findings should encourage suppliers to focus more on the spillover effects of punishment on observers. To this end, the supplier must deliberately initiate the appropriate level of punishment severity against its distributors because an inappropriate level of punishment severity (e.g. too lenient) may unexpectedly raise the unpunished observers’ level of opportunism. Moreover, the supplier should be fully aware that observers’ specific network positions may produce varying spillover effects of the punishment.

This study enriches the literature on channel governance by revealing the curvilinear mechanism through which punishment severity influences observers’ opportunism. By applying social learning theory to channel punishment research, this study unveils both the inhibitive learning and the imitative learning forces inherent in a single punishment event, and it delineates their joint effect on an observer’s opportunism. In addition, this study outlines the observer’s vertical and horizontal relationships within the distribution network and explores their contingent roles in determining the spillover effects of punishment.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the mediating role of “moral clarity” and the moderating role of “hypocrisy” in the relationship between sense of power and punishment severity.

The data were collected using purposive sampling from 250 government officials serving at a responsible and authoritative position in different public sector organizations operating in Pakistan.

The study has found a significant indirect effect of sense of power on punishment severity through moral clarity. This study has also found that this indirect effect is significant at higher levels of hypocrisy but insignificant at lower or moderate level of hypocrisy.

The study offers serious practical implications by highlighting the role of hypocrisy in powerful individuals’ moral judgements and their decisions to exercise power and administer punishments.

The study is the first to develop and test a mediated-moderation model of the relationship between sense of power, moral clarity, hypocrisy and punishment severity.

The paper aims to examine the inconclusive impacts of sanction-related deterrence on employee information security policy (ISP) compliance from the extant literature. It proposes that the disparate findings can be partially explained by two factors: investigating the mediating impact of attitudes on sanction effects instead of directly on behavioral intentions and examining employees with and without previous punishment experiences separately.

The paper relied upon survey data from 239 employees of a large governmental organization with a robust ISP and security education and training awareness program.

The paper provides empirical evidence that the rational estimation of sanction effects impacts the cognitive component of attitudes to develop a positive or negative attitude toward performing the ISP directed behavior. Furthermore, this attitudinal effect (created by sanction threats) will be biased depending on whether the employee has experienced, personally or vicariously, any previous punishment for violating the ISP.

Because of the chosen research approach (self-reported survey data) and context (single hierarchical organization and a very specific security threat), the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further in different organizational and threat contexts.

Organizations should have a thorough understanding of how their employees’ perceive sanctions in relationship to their prior experiences before implementing such policies.

The paper addresses previous research calls for examining possible mediation variables for deterrence effects and impacts of punishment experiences on employee ISP compliance.

The present study aims to examine the influence of emotional content and gender pertaining to victim impact statements (VIS) on sentencing outcomes.

The authors used a 2 (emotionality)×2 (participant gender)×2 (victim gender)×2 (statement gender) factorial design. Participants (n=715) read a crime vignette and corresponding VIS, and completed questionnaires pertaining to sentencing recommendations, legal attitudes, and levels of emotional empathy (counterbalanced).

Results indicated that participant gender was related to the emotional appeal of the VIS, and ratings of punishment severity. Emotional empathy was positively associated with perceptions of credibility and emotionality. Higher legal attitudes scores were positively correlated with higher minimum sentences, ratings of credibility, emotional appeal, as well as more severe punishments.

This study has important implications with respect to perceptions of VIS in relation to how emotional they are, who the victim is, who the statement is written by, and who hears the statement. Given the lack of previous research in this area, the study provides data that warrant further investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) gender stereotypicality, and to consider whether despite efforts to systematically evaluate employees through formalized performance appraisal processes, gender-stereotypic bias is likely to enter into performance management systems.

Study 1 used archival data from 197 federal employees to explore actual punishment recommendations allocated to men and women who engaged in a variety of CWBs. Study 2 tested the causal effect of gender stereotypicality on punishment recommendations with 47 EMBA students who participated in a laboratory study.

Study 1 revealed an interaction between appellant gender and CWB stereotypicality with regard to termination decisions suggesting that women who engage in stereotypical (i.e. feminine) CWBs and men who engage in stereotypical (i.e. masculine) CWBs are more likely to be terminated than women and men who engage in gender counter-stereotypic CWB. Study 2 revealed that women (not men) tended to receive harsher punishment recommendations for stereotypical (i.e. feminine) CWB than for counter-stereotypical (i.e. masculine) CWB.

Findings illustrate that punishments are not universally extreme, as men and women are denigrated differentially depending on the stereotypicality of their behavior. The current research affirms that there are social constructions for evaluating performance that may continue to confound evaluations of performance.

This is one of the first studies to explore the gendered nature of CWB and supports the argument that prescriptive gender stereotypes shape reactions to CWBs.

The economic theory of crime is based on the assumption that rational individuals act to maximize their utility given the possibility of allocating their time or resources to different activities (including crime). Withers (1984) represents the only significant, aggregative empirical analysis of the determinants of crime, and importance of general deterrence effects, in Australia, derived on the basis of this market model economic approach to criminal activity. Extends the economic analysis of crime in Australia by employing a rigorous approach to both the specification of the underlying economic model of crime and to the estimation of the statistical relationships in the data. Uses improved data measures ‐ notably sentence length ‐ that represent more suitable proxies for the theoretical concepts of interest. The inclusion of labour force participation as a highly significant explanatory factor represents a major specification improvement over earlier studies. Examines four categories of property crime in Australia over the period 1982‐1991. The findings provide significant support for a number of the postulates of the economic theory of crime. These include the negative, deterrence effect of both clearance rates (as a proxy for the probability of punishment) and expected sentence length (as a proxy for the severity of punishment) on the number of property crimes committed. Also finds a significant deterrence relationship between the aggregate unemployment rate and the labour force participation rate and certain categories of property crime. These findings provide important support for the market model of crime and the general deterrence hypothesis and opposition to the continuing prevalence of the simplistic sociological analysis of imprisonment and recidivism, which ignores general deterrence effects.

This chapter aims to demonstrate that the fundamental human rights principle that no one should be subjected to (grossly) disproportionate punishment should be interpreted to take into account terminal illness of the offender. It should be applied both during imposition of the sentences and also during execution of already imposed sentences.

In order to reveal whether this principle takes into account serious medical conditions, including terminal illness of the offender in the calculus of the proportionality of punishment and whether it is applicable at the execution stage of sentences, this chapter examined the roots of the fundamental human rights principle of proportionality of punishment by briefly surveying the penal theory, jurisprudence, court cases, laws, and legislative history from the U.S. federal and state jurisdictions and from Europe.

There is a consensus among surveyed theories that terminal illness of the offender is an element of the principle of proportionality of punishment. Thus the fundamental human rights principle must be interpreted to take it into account. The principle should be observed not only at the imposition stage, but also at the execution stage of already imposed sentences.

This chapter re-examines the roots of the fundamental human right to not being subjected to (grossly) disproportionate punishment. It does so in order to demonstrate that the right should be interpreted to take into account terminal illness of the offender and that it should be observed not only at the imposition stage, but also at the execution stage of already imposed sentences.

Employee security behaviors are the cornerstone for achieving holistic organizational information security. Recent studies in the information systems (IS) security literature have used neutralization and moral disengagement (MD) perspectives to examine employee rationalizations of noncompliant security behaviors. Extending this prior work, the purpose of this paper is to identify mechanisms of security education, training, and awareness (SETA) programs and deterrence as well as employees’ organizational commitment in influencing MD of security policy violations and develop a theoretical model to test the proposed relationships.

The authors validate and test the model using the data collected from six large multinational organizations in Korea using survey-based methodology. The model was empirically analyzed by structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that security policy awareness (PA) plays a central role in reducing MD of security policy violations and that the certainty of punishment and immediacy of enforcing penalties are instrumental toward reducing such MD; however, the higher severity of penalties does not have an influence. The findings also suggest that SETA programs are an important mechanism in creating security PA.

The paper expands the literature in IS security that has examined the role of moral evaluations. Drawing upon MD theory and social cognitive theory, the paper points to the central role of SETA and security PA in reducing MD of security policy violations, and ultimately the likelihood of this behavior. The paper not only contributes to theory but also provides important insights for practice.

This chapter proposes and provides evidence for a conceptual framework for understanding the restoration of justice. Specifically, there is a fundamental distinction between two primary symbolic concerns that follow from transgressions: concern over the status/power relations between the involved parties, and over the violation of the values those parties expect to share. Recognizing these concerns is paramount to understanding the psychological needs of injustice victims, how they conceptualize the restoration of justice, and the processes by which various interventions instill feelings of justice. This framework also elucidates when alternative avenues towards justice might be more effective than traditional retributive responses.