Birds of a feather: leader-follower similarity and procedural fairness effects on cooperation

The present paper examines to what extent leader-follower similarity moderates the effect of procedural justice on followers’ cooperation. Using subjective operationalizations of similarity in a vignette study, a field study and an experimental lab study, we demonstrated that the enactment of fair procedures elicits the highest levels of cooperation when followers perceive the leader as similar. This was true when similarity was framed in broad, deep-level terms (Study 1 and 2) or in terms of a single, specific characteristic, i.e., the need to belong (Study 3). In the discussion we elaborate on possible explanatory mechanisms and on the broader context of an integrative approach to leadership research

Why companies should value passionate leaders

In times of corporate scandals, companies have a strong motive to create ethical awareness among their employees and increase the effectiveness of fairness policies. Many companies agree with the idea that when establishing an ethical climate, the right type of leadership is needed

On Understanding the Human Nature of Good and Bad Behavior in Business: A Behavioral Ethics Approach

The numerous scandals in business, such as those at AIG, Tyco, WorldCom, Enron and Ahold, have made all of us concerned about the emergence of unethical and irresponsible behavior in organizations. Such widespread corruption in business and politics has, as result, prompted a growth of interest in the field of business ethics. At the same time, however, within the academic world it is also recognized that to tackle those unethical actions in an efficient way, the field of business ethics needs to integrate insights from behavioral science. In this inaugural address I focus more closely on the benefits that a behavioral approach can bring to the field of business ethics. In presenting these benefits, I draw a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive approaches and outline how the field of psychology can help in integrating these two perspectives so that we can move towards a more comprehensive understanding of behavioral business ethics. This integration is illustrated by my own research addressing how sanctioning and regulation syst

Leader-Follower Effects in Resource Dilemmas: The Roles of Leadership Selection and Social Responsibility

Previous research on the allocation of scarce resources shows that when people are assigned labels of leader or follower in their group, leaders allocate more of the scarce resources to themselves than followers do. In three laboratory studies, we examine the idea that how people are selected for the leader role (i.e. election or appointment) determines whether leaders take more or equal shares (relative to followers) from a common resource. In a first experiment, we show that participants were more accepting of norm violating behavior by an appointed versus elected leader. In a second experiment, we show that when participants were assigned to a leader or follower role, allocations of appointed leaders differed significantly from those of elected leaders and followers, whereas there was no difference between the two latter conditions. Moreover, elected leaders were shown to feel more social responsibility than both appointed leaders and followers. In a final experiment, we show that when participants were primed with the concept of social responsibility (relative to a neutral condition) no difference in allocations between appointed and elected leaders emerged

Procedural justice effects on self-esteem under certainty versus uncertainty emotions

Building upon the idea that procedural justice effects are more pronounced when uncertainty is high, we proposed that recall of an uncertainty-eliciting emotion (fear) will render people more responsive to variations in procedural justice than will recall of a certainty-eliciting emotion (disgust). Results from Study 1, (n = 79 undergraduate students) confirmed that a fair procedure (voice condition) enhanced self-esteem relative to an unfair procedure (no voice condition) to a greater extent when people recalled fear than when they recalled disgust. Results from Study 2 (n = 147 undergraduate students) also showed that a fair, relative to an unfair, procedure enhanced self-esteem more strongly when recalling the emotion of fear rather than disgust, but only when these emotions were recalled from a self-immersed than a self-distanced perspective. These findings confirm that discrete emotions that orient people to interpret situations in uncertain versus certain ways are important antecedents of procedural justice effects

Guest Editors’ Introduction On Understanding Ethical Behavior and Decision Making

Behavioral ethics is an emerging field that takes an empirical, social scientific approach to the study of business ethics. In this special issue, we include six articles that fall within the domain of behavioral ethics and that focus on three themes—moral awareness, ethical decision making, and reactions to unethical behavior. Each of the articles sheds additional light on the specific issues addressed. However, we hope this special issue will have an impact beyond that of the new insights offered in these articles, by stimulating evenmore research in this burgeoning field

How emotion communication guides reciprocity: establishing cooperation through disappointment and anger

Emotions fulfil many social functions, but data on their essential function of establishing cooperation are lacking. We investigated how communicating anger and disappointment guides reciprocal cooperative behavior. Although anger may force cooperation by announcing retaliation, we predicted that communicating disappointment was less likely to backfire. A laboratory study in which participants played against the reciprocal strategy of tit-for-tat showed that communicated disappointment established more cooperation than did anger. This effect also carried over to future cooperation decisions. Partners communicating disappointment evoked less anger, were evaluated more positively and as forgiving rather than retaliatory. Communication of disappointment thus appears conducive to establishing mutually beneficial relationships

When and how communicated guilt affects contributions in public good dilemmas

"Two laboratory studies investigated how groups may deal with the strong emotions that social dilemmas often elicit. A first study showed that a new group member evaluated guilt communicated by a fellow group member as more instrumental than neutral emotion feedback when the amount of required resources to obtain the public good (i.e., provision point) was perceived as difficult to obtain. A second study revealed that participants use communicated guilt to draw inferences about both past and future contributions from all fellow group members. Participants also contributed more themselves and adhered to equality more often when guilt versus no emotion was communicated, but only when the provision point was high. Expected contributions from fellow group members mediated this effect." [author's abstract

Does Change Incite Abusive Supervision? The Role of Transformational Change and Hindrance Stress

To remain competitive, organizations tend to change their established ways of working, their strategy, the core values, and the organizational structure. Such thorough changes are referred to as transformational change. Unfortunately, transformational change is often unsuccessful because organizational members do not always welcome the change. Although organizations often expect their supervisors to be successful role-models and change-agents during the transformational change process, we argue that initiating transformational change could increase supervisors\u27 hindrance stress levels, which may result in abusive behaviors towards employees. More specifically, in a multi-source survey and an experimental study, we find evidence that transformational change is associated with supervisors\u27 experienced hindrance stress, which subsequently led to more abusive behaviors towards employees