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1 – 10 of 233The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal was one of the largest examples of organizational wrongdoing in corporate history, costing the firm immense damage to its reputation and over…
Abstract
The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal was one of the largest examples of organizational wrongdoing in corporate history, costing the firm immense damage to its reputation and over $33 billion in fines, penalties, financial settlements, and buyback costs. In this paper, we draw on the concept of boundary work to provide insight into the causes of wrongdoing at VW. Supplementing other work on the scandal, we show how the ways in which boundaries became established in the organization resulted in an internal context that defined “in” and “out” groups, normalized certain behaviors, and limited communication across intraorganizational boundaries. This allowed wrongdoing to not only become established but also to go unchallenged. We provide contributions to broader understandings of organizational wrongdoing and to the temporal unfolding of boundary work by theorizing how a combination of cognitive, horizontal, and vertical boundaries can create an infrastructure of organizational design that permits organizational wrongdoing, prevents it being challenged, and ultimately normalizes it in everyday activities.
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Russell Mannion, Huw Davies, Martin Powell, John Blenkinsopp, Ross Millar, Jean McHale and Nick Snowden
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of care.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a review of the theoretical literature on professions and documentary analysis of key public inquiry documents and reports in the UK National Health Service (NHS) the authors examine how the misconduct of doctors can be understood using the metaphor of professional wrongdoing as a product of bad apples, bad barrels or bad cellars.
Findings
The wrongdoing literature tends to present an uncritical assumption of increasing sophistication in analysis, as the focus moves from bad apples (individuals) to bad barrels (organisations) and more latterly to bad cellars (the wider system). This evolution in thinking about wrongdoing is also visible in public inquiries, as analysis and recommendations increasingly tend to emphasise cultural and systematic issues. Yet, while organisational and systemic factors are undoubtedly important, there is a need to keep in sight the role of individuals, for two key reasons. First, there is growing evidence that a small number of doctors may be disproportionately responsible for large numbers of complaints and concerns. Second, there is a risk that the role of individual professionals in drawing attention to wrongdoing is being neglected.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first theoretical and empirical study specifically exploring the role of NHS inquiries in holding the medical profession to account for failings in professional practice.
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This study aims to outline the role of causal attributions in consumer responses to irresponsible corporate behaviour. Specifically, this paper presents a moderated mediation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to outline the role of causal attributions in consumer responses to irresponsible corporate behaviour. Specifically, this paper presents a moderated mediation model that explains how four types of perceived motives behind an irresponsible action shape corporate blame and word-of-mouth recommendations.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypotheses, the study uses data from a large survey assessing consumer reactions to a real case of corporate socially irresponsible behaviour in the banking industry.
Findings
The findings show that market-, unethicality- and rogue employee-driven attributions increase corporate blame and subsequently make people more likely to spread negative comments regarding the culprit. The difficult situation of a bank, as a perceived reason for wrongdoing, does not reduce the blame attributed to the irresponsible organisation.
Originality/value
The literature offers little information on the attributions people make following egregious corporate behaviour; however, such cognitions can play an important role in stakeholders’ reactions to wrongdoing. This study therefore extends the understanding of how irresponsibility attributions affect consumers’ responses to misbehaviour. Given the empirical context, the findings might be particularly important for communication and bank managers.
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Kenneth Butterfield, Nathan Robert Neale, Eunjeong Shin and Mengjiao (Rebecca) He
The current management literature suggests that when employees engage in wrongdoing, managers typically respond with punishment. The emerging moral repair literature suggests an…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Social implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the extent of protection available for whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the extent of protection available for whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper first provides a brief background of crime in South Africa and argues that the concept of the whistleblower is just a buss word or collective noun. The methodology of this paper consists of a literature review of whistleblowers and relevant laws that can be used to protect whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.
Findings
This paper concludes that the existing law as primarily contained in the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides appropriate protection for whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.
Research limitations/implications
Whistleblowers provide information on criminal, civil and disciplinary wrongdoings. This study focuses on the protection of whistleblowers pursuant to mainly the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in the approach to the handling of whistleblowers in South African criminal cases. This is the first research done with the emphasis on the use of mainly the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 to protect whistleblowers in South African criminal cases. The contribution of the study is that, by using this approach, it can provide protection and save lives, and it may enhance the willingness of whistleblowers to blow the whistle, which will be beneficial to the community of South Africa as a whole.
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Doxing refers to the intentional public release by a third party of personal data without consent, often with the intent to humiliate, intimidate, harass, or punish the individual…
Abstract
Doxing refers to the intentional public release by a third party of personal data without consent, often with the intent to humiliate, intimidate, harass, or punish the individual concerned. Intuitively, it is tempting to condemn doxing as a crude form of cyber violence that weaponizes personal data. When it is used as a strategy of resistance by the powerless to hold the powerful accountable, however, a more nuanced understanding is called for. This chapter focuses on the doxing phenomenon in Hong Kong, where doxing incidents against police officers and their family members have skyrocketed since 2019 (a 75-fold increase over 2018). It contends that doxing for political purposes is closely related to digital vigilantism, signifying a loss of confidence in the ruling authority and a yearning for an alternative form of justice. The chapter therefore argues that public interest should be recognized as a legal defense in doxing cases when those discharging or entrusted with public duty are the targets. Equally, it is important to confine the categories of personal data disclosed to information necessary to reveal the alleged wrongdoer or wrongdoing. Only in this way can a fair balance be struck between privacy, freedom of expression, and public interest.
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Smita Gupta and Kanika T. Bhal
In the scope of the immense growth of corporate frauds and scandals, reporting unethical practices could be considered as an important mechanism to control them and ultimately…
Abstract
Purpose
In the scope of the immense growth of corporate frauds and scandals, reporting unethical practices could be considered as an important mechanism to control them and ultimately improve organizational quality. To this end, this study proposes the conceptual framework comprising the enablers impacting employees' tendencies and behaviors to reporting misdemeanor in the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
Systematic review of literature has been carried out. To understand the complexities among various enablers and to analyze their driving power and contingencies, a modified total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach has been adopted.
Findings
The findings indicate that enablers such as moral identity (MI) and job satisfaction (JS) having higher driving power (come at the bottom of the hierarchy) are relatively more important. Furthermore, perceived personal cost (PC), moral courage (MC), self-efficacy (SE) and anger have high dependent power of factors. Finally, the paper provides two paths that can lead to whistleblower's ethical decision.
Research limitations/implications
A conceptual framework delivered in this paper requires to test against the field data. However, the conceptual understanding of driving enablers paves the way to top management in recruiting and hiring people in the workplace.
Originality/value
This study represents the first attempt to apply TISM for whistleblowing phenomenon. It provides a comprehensive conceptual framework in order to address the relative importance of various individual enablers in developing reporting tendencies against misdemeanors.
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Tatiana Iwai, Luciana Yeung and Rinaldo Artes
This study aims to examine the effects of peer ethical behavior and individual differences in valuation of fairness vs loyalty on whistleblowing intentions in academic settings…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effects of peer ethical behavior and individual differences in valuation of fairness vs loyalty on whistleblowing intentions in academic settings. This study also tests the underlying mechanism responsible for the effects of peer behavior on reporting intentions, namely, fear of reprisal.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted with 947 undergraduate students. The model was tested using ordinary least squares regression models followed by bootstrapped mediation analyses.
Findings
Results showed that the effects of peer ethical behavior on whistleblowing intentions are mediated by fear of retaliation. Moreover, the findings indicated that, for low-severity transgressions, there is an interactive effect between fear of retaliation and endorsement of fairness over loyalty on whistleblowing intentions.
Research limitations/implications
When the misconduct is seen as minor, a potential whistleblower may understand that the expected costs outweigh the possible benefits of blowing the whistle. In such situations, higher fear of retaliation would undermine the effects of individual’s endorsement of fairness over loyalty on reporting intentions.
Practical implications
As the social environment significantly affects someone’s whistleblowing intentions, there should be visible efforts to improve and to foster an ethical infrastructure in organizations.
Social implications
As fear of retaliation by peers is one of the most important determinants affecting the decision to report misconduct in general, there must be serious efforts from leaders to mitigate any threat of retaliation to those who come forward.
Originality/value
This work contributes to the discussion about individual and situational antecedents of whistleblowing. More importantly, it sheds light on one potential boundary condition for the influence of the fairness–loyalty tradeoff on whistleblowing decisions: severity of the transgression. The findings provide initial evidence that, for low-severity transgressions, fear of retaliation weakens the positive effects of one’s moral compass in terms of preference for fairness over loyalty on whistleblowing intentions.
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