Moral emotions and ethics in organisations: introduction to the special issue

The aim of our special issue is to deepen our understanding of the role moral emotions play in organisations as part of a wider discourse on organisational ethics and morality. Unethical workplace behaviours can have far-reaching consequences—job losses, risks to life and health, psychological damage to individuals and groups, social injustice and exploitation and even environmental devastation. Consequently, determining how and why ethical transgressions occur with surprising regularity, despite the inhibiting influence of moral emotions, has considerable theoretical and practical significance to management scholars and managers alike. In this introduction, we present some of the core arguments in the field; notably, the effect of organisational life and bureaucracy on emotions, in general, and moral emotions, in particular; the moral standing of leaders, managers and followers; moral challenges raised by obedience and resistance to organisational power and ethical blindspots induced by what may appear as deeply moral emotions. These issues are explored by a collection of geographically diverse articles in various work contexts, which are thematically organised in terms of (i) moral emotions, ethical behaviour and social pressure, (ii) moral emotions and their consequences within/across levels of analysis, (iii) psychoanalytic perspectives on the management of moral emotions, (iv) virtue and moral emotions and (v) moral emotions and action tendencies. We end by suggesting certain avenues for future research in the hope that the endeavour initiated here will inspire improved practice at work. Keyword

In the mind\u27s eye: What organizational members see in performance feedback

Performance feedback is an important, though complex communicative phenomenon. It may facilitate organizational performance, commitment, and satisfaction, or it may contribute to reduced morale, effort and task performance. To understand better why each response might occur, focus is directed to feedback recipient perceptions of and reactions to these task-relevant messages. Thus, the research presented here seeks to explore the underlying complexity of this seemingly simple construct and individual responses to it. In particular, two separate studies address the hidden structure or multidimensionality of performance feedback from the recipient\u27s perspective, and whether these salient dimensions further explanation and prediction of feedback\u27s impact. Study 1 involves the collection and categorization of actual feedback messages into subjectively-meaningful groups. These data are analyzed using multidimensional scaling to produce a three-dimensionsal solution identifiable as message valence, sensitivity, and instruction/advice. Study 2 extends this research by assessing the predictive power of these dimensions for three types of individual responses--cognitive (feedback acceptance), affective (attitude change), and behavioral (perceived performance change). Results indicate that both collectively and individually, these dimensions are highly predictive of positive and negative reactions to performance feedback. Specific findings, their implications and recommendations for future research are discussed

Can Work Be Fun? Improving Task Motivation and Help-Seeking Through Game Mechanics

Gamification has become an increasingly important design paradigm for information systems, impacting both research and practice. Effective gamification requires designers to tap into intrinsic motivations by framing tasks in ways that evoke positive attitudes through challenge and friendly competition. These positive attitudes can lead to greater engagement and encourage help-seeking behavior, a key goal of developing motivated learners. The objective of this paper is to understand the conditions and types of mechanisms that that encourage participants to become engaged in a task and seek help to improve. Based on the literature on the game element hierarchy and goal orientation, we propose a theoretical model to explain how different types of learners will respond to different game mechanisms. We outline the design an experiment to test our hypotheses