An Examination of Manager-Facilitated Moral Repair in the Workplace

Mengjiao (Rebecca) He

doi:10.7273/000006328

This dissertation investigates the topic of manager-facilitated moral repair, which refers to managerial responses to wrongdoing and harm in the workplace that are reparative or restorative in nature. While workplace moral repair is an emerging topic in the management and business ethics literature, little is currently known about how and why managers attempt to facilitate moral repair of offenders in the aftermath of workplace wrongdoing, as well as the beneficial (i.e. “bright side”) and negative or harmful (i.e. “dark side”) outcomes for the offender and the broader organization after managers engage in moral repair. To examine this phenomenon, I have conducted two empirical essays. The first essay is a mixed-method paper. Study 1 is a qualitative investigation of manager-facilitated moral repair from the managers’ perspective. Study 1 produced an inductive model of the manager-facilitated moral repair process, including motivating factors, manager-initiated actions intended to facilitate offender moral repair, facilitators and inhibitors, and outcomes of the moral repair process. Study 2 is quantitative, building upon the findings of Study 1 by examining key relationships between manager-facilitated moral repair and offender-related outcomes that surfaced from Study 1. The results of both studies suggest that various aspects of manager-facilitated moral repair can positively influence offender satisfaction, commitment, and OCBs, and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. Study 2 also showed that one aspect of moral repair, including third parties in reparative meetings, negatively influenced OCBs and increased the likelihood of reoffending. The second essay is a quantitative paper that explores how and when manager-facilitated moral repair leads to dark side outcomes, specifically offenders' unethical pro-supervisor behavior (UPSB). UPSB refers to employees’ unethical actions that are intended to benefit their supervisors. This paper adopts a restorative justice perspective, conceptualizing manager-facilitated moral repair in terms of managers' restorative justice practices, and tests a series of hypotheses regarding links between managers’ restorative justice practices, offenders’ cognitive/affective reactions to those practices (e.g., gratitude), and UPSB. The results demonstrate that various restorative justice practices are associated with UPSB via offenders’ gratitude, desire to reciprocate the benevolent treatment they received from their manager, and identification with the manager. The findings also reveal that the relationships between offenders’ gratitude and desire to reciprocate positive treatment and UPSB are weaker when the offender has a strong moral identity.

An Examination of Manager-Facilitated Moral Repair in the Workplace

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