Employee unethical behavior continues to be an area of interest as real-world business scandals persist. We investigate what happens after people engage in unethical behavior. Drawing from emotion theories (e.g., Tangney & Dearing, 2002) and the self-presentation literature (e.g., Leary & Miller, 2000), we first argue that people are socialized to experience shame after moral violations (Hypothesis 1). People then manage their shame and try to protect their self-images by engaging in exemplification behaviors (i.e., self-sacrificial behaviors that give the attribution of being a dedicated person; Hypothesis 2). We also examine the moderating role of supervisor bottom-line mentality (BLM; i.e., a supervisor's singular focus on pursuing bottom-line outcomes) in relation to our theoretical model. We argue that high supervisor BLM intensifies the employee unethical behavior to shame relationship (Hypothesis 3) and results in heightened exemplification as a way to protect one's self-image by portraying the self as a dedicated person who is worthy of association (Hypothesis 4). We test our theoretical model across 2 experimental studies and 2 field studies. Although our results provide general support for Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, our results produced mixed findings for Hypothesis 4. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Are supervisors who care more about profits than employee well-being seen by employees as being good exchange partners? How do employees perceive and respond to supervisors who treat the bottom line as more important than anything else? Supervisors who hold a bottom-line mentality (BLM) neglect competing priorities such as employee well-being and ethical practices to focus on securing bottom-line success. We find high-BLM supervisors serve as low-quality exchange partners with their employees, resulting in employee perceptions of low-quality leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships. In turn, employees reciprocate by withholding the very thing the supervisor desires—performance—in order to maintain balance in the exchange relationship. As such, supervisors who possess a BLM could actually be negatively impacting the organization’s bottom line through the harmful social exchange relationships they engender with their employees and their impact on employee task performance. We also examine the moderating role of employee BLM on these relationships. When employee BLM is low, we observe a greater negative effect on employee value judgments of the supervisor (i.e. reduced LMX perceptions) and lower employee performance. We test and find support for all of our hypotheses in two multi-source (i.e. employee-supervisor dyads), time-lagged field studies ( N = 189 and N = 244).

Summary By discussing “families” of moral emotions, we synthesize and review the moral emotions literature in an effort to advance organizational scholarship. First, we broadly discuss “what constitutes a moral emotion?” Second, we critically examine each family of moral emotions. We discuss key controversies and debates, particularly in terms of construct overlap, and provide recommendations. Third, we review scholarly work on each family of moral emotions in the workplace and offer ideas for future research. Finally, in our general future directions, we discuss a range of theoretical perspectives that can be used to advance the moral emotions literature in the management field.