Research has offered a pessimistic (although limited) view regarding the effectiveness of ethical champions in teams and the social consequences they are likely to experience. To challenge this view, we conducted two multimethod (quantitative/qualitative) experimental studies in the context of entrepreneurial team decision-making to examine whether and how an ethical champion can shape team decision ethicality and whether ethical champions experience interpersonal costs. In Study 1, we found that confederate ethical champions influenced team decisions to be more ethical by increasing team ethical awareness. Focusing on the emotional expressions of ethical champions, we found that sympathetic and angry ethical champions both increased team decision ethicality but that angry ethical champions were more disliked. Analysis of team interaction videos further revealed moral disengagement in team discussions and the emergence of nonconfederate ethical champions who used business frames to argue for the ethical decision. Those emergent phenomena shifted our focus, in Study 2, to how ethical champions framed the issues and the mediating processes involved. We found that ethical champions using ethical frames not only increased team ethical awareness but also consequently reduced team moral disengagement, resulting in more ethical team decisions. Ethical champions using business frames also improved team decision ethicality, but by increasing the perceived business utility of the ethical decision.

Despite the importance of ethical voice for advancing ethics in organizations, we know little about how coworkers respond to ethical voice in their work units. Drawing on the fundamental approach/avoidance behavioral system and the promotive and prohibitive distinction in the voice literature, we distinguish between promotive and prohibitive ethical voice and propose that they engender different emotionselevation (an approach-oriented moral emotion) and feelings of threat (an avoidance-oriented emotion), respectively, in coworkers. We propose that these emotions differentially influence coworker subsequent responses to the ethical voice behavior. In a time-lagged critical incident survey and two experimental studies, we consistently found support for our hypothesis that promotive ethical voice elicits moral elevation in coworkers with subsequent coworker verbal support for the ethical voice (an approach-oriented response). However, results for prohibitive ethical voice were more complex because prohibitive ethical voice leads to mixed emotions in coworkers. It sometimes leads to feelings of threat, with indirect negative effects via threat on coworker support. But surprisingly, it also leads to coworker elevation and hence can have positive indirect effects via elevation on coworker support. We will discuss the research and practical implications of these findings.

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In this study, the authors build a model to examine the relationship between college socialization tactics, fit perceptions (person major fit and person group fit), and adjustment outcomes (academic satisfaction, grade point average, and helping behaviors). College socialization tactics are categorized into three clusters, namely tactics via school administrations and departments, tactics via senior schoolmates, and tactics via peers. Longitudinal survey data from 181 undergraduates during their freshman year indicated (1) the three clusters of tactics related differently to various forms of adjustment; (2) perceived person major fit mediated the relationship between tactics via school administrations and departments, tactics via senior schoolmates, and academic outcomes; (3) perceived person group fit mediated the relationship between tactics via peers and helping behaviors. The results suggest that different entities within colleges play different roles in facilitating student adjustment.

Why do employees fail to report a friend's misconduct, and if they do not report, how else do they cope with this ethical dilemma? Through two field studies, we offer a more nuanced understanding of the range of alternative responses between the extremes of silence (ignoring misconduct) and compliance (reporting), and we illuminate the underlying reasons for these choices. Our results reveal that most employees are inclined to attempt to resolve a friend‐reporting situation themselves, and further, that many employees hesitate to report a friend's misconduct for ethical reasons. Specifically, we show how an ethic of care expressed through empathy for the transgressor may play an important and previously unexamined role in friend‐reporting decisions, drawing attention to the consideration of empathy as a key emotion that can reduce compliance with reporting programmes. In addition to these important contributions to the literature, practitioners should also find this study useful, as it suggests new approaches to help employees better align their choices with the compliance goals of the organisation without sacrificing their valued friendships.