Losing More than Money: Organizations’ Prosocial Actions Appear Less Authentic When Their Resources are Declining
Arthur S. Jago (),
Nathanael Fast and
Jeffrey Pfeffer
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Arthur S. Jago: University of Washington-Tacoma
Nathanael Fast: University of Southern California
Jeffrey Pfeffer: Stanford University
Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 175, issue 2, No 11, 413-425
Abstract:
Abstract Companies often benefit from others’ attributions of moral conviction for prosocial behavior, for example, attributions that a company has a sincere moral desire to improve the environment when behaving sustainably. Across four studies, we explored how organizations’ changing resource positions influenced people’s attributions for the motivations underlying prosocial organizational behaviors. Observers attributed less moral conviction following prosocial behavior when they believed an organization was losing (vs. gaining) economic resources (Studies 1 and 2). This effect was primarily a “penalty” assessed against organizations that were losing resources, as opposed to a “reward” given to organizations gaining resources (Study 3). Finally, we found that this effect occurred because people perceive organizations that are losing resources as more situationally constrained, leading them to attribute less dispositional moral conviction (Study 4). We discuss theoretical and practical implications stemming from how changes in resource access can lead people to be more skeptical of organizations’ motivations following prosocial behavior.
Keywords: Moral conviction; Attribution; Impression management; Signaling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04645-8
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