Why sabotage customers who mistreat you? Activated hostility and subsequent devaluation of targets as a moral disengagement mechanism.

Abstract

We utilize the social intuitionist approach to moral judgment and moral disengagement theory to understand why and when employees sabotage customers. We contend that when customers mistreat employees (i.e., customer mistreatment), employees experience intuitive emotional reactions in the form of hostility, which automatically activates devaluation of targets, a specific facet of moral disengagement. In turn, employees become unencumbered by moral self-regulation and sabotage customers who mistreat them (i.e., customer-directed sabotage). We further argue that our serially mediated model is moderated by employees’ perceptions of the organization’s ethical climate. When ethical climates are perceived as being low, employees’ hostile reactions toward misbehaving customers produce a positive relationship with devaluation of targets, and devaluation of targets results in a positive relationship with customer-directed sabotage. These positive relationships do not hold when ethical climate is perceived as being high. We test our theoretical model using a field sample of customer service employees and an experimental study to establish causality. Our results provide general support for our hypotheses. We discuss theoretical and practical implications and opportunities for future research.

Moral emotions: A review and research agenda for management scholarship

“…Second, the moral emotions literature could be advanced by considering an intuitionist perspective (e.g., Haidt, ; Reynolds, ; Sonenshein, ). Haidt's () social intuitionist approach to moral judgment is starting to receive attention in the management literature (e.g., Andersen, Zuber, & Hill, ; Dedeke, ; Huang, Greenbaum, Bonner, & Wang, in press; Provis, ; Zuber & Andersen, ). Haidt defined moral intuition as “… the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good–bad, like–dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion” (p. 818).…”

“…In this respect, future research could examine why people respond to eliciting events in ways that seem contrary to sound moral reasoning. As demonstrated by Huang, Greenbaum, Bonner, and Wang (in press), people may impulsively act on their moral emotions, without fully thinking through their feelings and resulting behaviors. For example, an unemployed person may forgo an opportunity to work in a “dirty” industry (Ashforth & Kreiner, ) because of strong disgust reactions, even though, rationally, the job would provide financial security.…”

“…For example, past research suggests that infants and primates are biologically predisposed to recognize unfair social interactions and to respond with moral emotions and behaviors (e.g., de Waal, ; Geraci & Surian, ). Additionally, people experience moral emotions when they are victims of mistreatment (e.g., Huang, Greenbaum, Bonner, & Wang, in press). These emotions serve a protective function by alerting people to the possibility of harmful, future situations (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, ).…”

Ethical Leadership and Team Ethical Voice and Citizenship Behavior in the Military: The Roles of Team Moral Efficacy and Ethical Climate

“…Drawing upon social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978) and the social intuitionist model (Haidt, 2001), we propose that the social learning process associated with ethical leadership will vary across levels of the team’s ethical climate (Y. S. S. Huang et al, 2019; Martin & Cullen, 2006; Schminke et al, 2005).…”

Environmental regulation, green product innovation and performance: Do the environmental dynamics matter in Thai Sports industry?

“…According to contingency theory, it has been explained in the next section. In China, it was revealed in an empirical study that the responses of organization for improve innovation of green products can be promoted through pressure from customers and regulatory policies (Huang, Greenbaum, & Bonner, 2019). In section 2.1 and 2.2, this result has been linked with the above discussion.…”