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Vicarious shame and psychological distancing following organizational misbehavior

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Abstract

When organizations are engaging in publicly visible misbehavior, organizational members’ emotional responses may affect the organization’s ability to react effectively. If members respond with shame, they have a high tendency to distance themselves from the organization, a phenomenon termed cutting off reflected failure. Further, for those who identify more closely with the organization at the time of the misbehavior, this effect is stronger. We report two studies that tested the above predictions—a field study of a real industry-wide crisis in Taiwan’s fast-food industry and a university accounting scandal. We found that shame responses enhanced intentions to distance from the organization, and that organizational identification boosted the shame response.

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Notes

  1. Note that this result is not shown in Table 4. Table 4 provides separate analyses for high and low OI.

  2. Based on Hall et al. (1999), we adopted the item parceling method to reduce the items to an acceptable level. That is, for the scale of responsibility attribution, vicarious shame, and organizational identification, 2–3 items were parceled together as a single measure.

  3. Same as Study 1, we adopted the item parceling method as suggested by Hall et al. (1999).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Roosevelt Road, Sec. 4, Taipei, 106, Taiwan

    Shu-Cheng Steve Chi

  2. Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, 401 21st Ave. South, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Raymond A. Friedman

  3. Department of Business Administration, Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology, 229, Chien-Hsin Rd., Jung-Li, 320, Taiwan

    Hsin-Hsin Lo

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  1. Shu-Cheng Steve Chi
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  2. Raymond A. Friedman
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Correspondence to Shu-Cheng Steve Chi.

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Chi, SC.S., Friedman, R.A. & Lo, HH. Vicarious shame and psychological distancing following organizational misbehavior. Motiv Emot 39, 795–812 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9483-0

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