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The current management literature suggests that when employees engage in wrongdoing, managers typically respond with punishment. The emerging moral repair literature suggests an alternative to punishment: a reparative response that focuses on repairing harm and restoring damaged relationships. However, little is currently known about restorative managerial responses, including why managers respond to employee wrongdoing in a reparative versus punitive manner. The purpose of this paper is to examine a variety of cognitive and emotional influences on this managerial decision.

This study used a scenario-based survey methodology. The authors gathered data from 894 managers in sales and financial services contexts to test a set of hypotheses regarding individual-level influences on managers’ punitive versus restorative responses.

This study found that managers’ restorative justice orientation, retributive justice orientation, social considerations (e.g. when employees are relatively interdependent versus independent), instrumental considerations (e.g. when the offender is highly valuable to the organization) and feelings of anger influenced their reparative versus punitive responses.

Data are cross-sectional, so causality inferences should be approached with caution. Another potential limitation is common method bias due to single-source and single-wave data.

The findings of this study show that managers often opt for a restorative response to workplace transgressions, and this study surfaces a variety of reasons why managers choose a restorative response instead of a punitive response.

This study focuses on social order and expectations within the workplace. This is important to victims, offenders, observers, managers and other stakeholders. This study seeks to emphasize the importance of social factors, a shared social identity, social bonds and other relationships within this manuscript. This is an important component of organizational-focused restorative justice research.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to explicitly test individual-level influences on managers’ reparative versus punitive responses to employee wrongdoing.

The National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) recognizes that there is a tendency for the term “PDS” (Professional Development School) to be used as a catch-all for various relationships that constitute school–university partnership work. The intent of this NAPDS statement is to assert the essentials, or fundamental qualities, of a PDS. NAPDS encourages all those working in school–university relationships to embrace the Nine Essentials of PDSs communicated in this statement. The Essentials are written in tangible, rather than abstract, language and represent practical goals toward which work in a PDS should be directed.

Policy statement.

NAPDS maintains that these Nine Essentials need to be present for a school-university relationship to be called a PDS. Without having all nine, the relationship that exists between a school/district and college/university, albeit however strong, would not be a PDS. How individual PDSs meet these essentials will vary from location to location, but they all need to be in place to justify the use of the term “PDS.”

For those in established PDSs, some aspects of this document will be confirmed, while other aspects may be identified as needing attention. For those aspiring to establish PDSs, the authors offer this statement as a useful guide for their work. NAPDS invites individuals involved in school–university partnerships to share this statement with colleagues in the spirit of continuous improvement. By coming to terms with the challenges and opportunities inherent in this statement, the study can collectively fulfill the vision of this remarkable and distinct partnership called PDS.

This policy statement articulates how the Nine Essentials are the foundation of PDS work.