Moral Reactions to Bribery are Fundamentally Different for Managers Witnessing and Managers Committing Such Acts: Tests of Cognitive-Emotional Explanations of Bribery

Ekta Sharma () and Richard P. Bagozzi ()
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Ekta Sharma: Ahmedabad University
Richard P. Bagozzi: University of Michigan

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 177, issue 1, No 7, 95-124

Abstract: Abstract We investigate how paying a bribe or refusing a bribe differs between observing others doing this or committing such acts oneself. Study 1 examines how and when observing others paying a bribe or refusing a bribe leads to actions opposing bribery or supporting anti-bribery. The how question is answered by showing that positive and negative emotions mediate such responses; the when question is answered by demonstrating that empathy and the social self-concept constitute personal conditions for regulating such effects. Study 2 scrutinizes how and when paying a bribe or refusing a bribe leads to actions reducing bribery. Here the mediators pride and shame, and the social self-concept again regulates such effects. Actual managers are the respondents in these two field experiments, with 140 men and women in Study 1 and 207 men and women in Study 2.

Keywords: Bribery; Positive and negative emotions; Shame; Pride; Social self-concept; Empathy; Attitudes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04743-1

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