“Doing well by doing good”? Ambivalent moral framing in organizations

When principled deviance becomes moral threat: Testing alternative mechanisms for the rejection of moral rebels

Monin, Sawyer, and Marquez (2008) demonstrated that a rebel who refused to participate in a racially prejudiced decision task was derogated by actors who had themselves taken part in the task, but exalted by uninvolved observers. These authors argued that this rejection resulted from actors who expected and resented imagined moral reproach from the rebel. Two new studies address alternative explanations for such rejection of moral rebels. Study 1 rules out both (a) self-presentation and (b) a more cognitive alternative wherein anchoring on one’s first impression of a task leads to do-gooder derogation. Study 2 breaks down the principled rebellion into its two components, a principled stance and rebellion itself, to show that both seem to play a part in derogation. Individuals imagine that moral others would reject them, which in turn leads to rejecting those deviants.

Leaders’ Use of Moral Justifications Increases Policy Support

Leaders must choose how to justify their organization’s actions to stakeholders. We differentiate moral frames, or justifications based on moral values, from pragmatic frames, or justifications based on practical costs and benefits. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we found that moral policy frames elicited more support than pragmatic frames across a variety of scenarios. This effect was mediated by the perception that leaders who offer moral justifications possess relatively greater moral character. In Experiment 2, we found that perceptions of a leader’s private motives had a stronger influence on policy support than did the leader’s public stance. Experiment 3 demonstrated that, irrespective of how a policy was framed, people were most supportive of a policy championed by a leader high in moral character. In Experiment 4, we documented an additional benefit of moral policy frames: They allow leaders to mitigate the moral outrage generated by reneging on a policy.

Core values versus common sense: consequentialist views appear less rooted in morality

When a speaker presents an opinion, an important factor in audiences' reactions is whether the speaker seems to be basing his or her decision on ethical (as opposed to more pragmatic) concerns. We argue that, despite a consequentialist philosophical tradition that views utilitarian consequences as the basis for moral reasoning, lay perceivers think that speakers using arguments based on consequences do not construe the issue as a moral one. Five experiments show that, for both political views (including real State of the Union quotations) and organizational policies, consequentialist views are seen to express less moralization than deontological views, and even sometimes than views presented with no explicit justification. We also demonstrate that perceived moralization in turn affects speakers' perceived commitment to the issue and authenticity. These findings shed light on lay conceptions of morality and have practical implications for people considering how to express moral opinions publicly.

Why do leaders practice amoral management? A conceptual investigation of the impediments to ethical leadership

We present a theoretical model of amoral management in an effort to understand impediments to ethical leadership. We posit that a number of anticipated negative consequences of engaging in ethical leadership are positively related to amoral management and these relationships are strengthened by contextual factors. Furthermore, we argue that under certain conditions, amoral managers may experience enough moral motivation to engage in initial ethical leadership practices. However, if the leader’s newly acquired ethical leadership practices are met with resistance, such that the leader experiences substantial role stressors and reductions in short-term performance and becomes a victim of supervisor-directed deviance and/or workplace ostracism, then the leader will abandon ethical leadership practices and return to the status quo of being an amoral manager.