All normative leadership theories suggest that disciplining followers that transgress moral norms is a crucial leadership task. However, leaders sometimes yet fail to do so. Previous research has indicated that leaders may refrain from enacting discipline out of self-interest or from concern for the organization's interest. We explore another option: leaders may simply be unwilling to enforce moral norms because of a negative attitude towards them. We argue and show that leaders that construe norms on relatively low (i.e. concrete) levels are likely to see norms as annoying obstacles, whereas leaders that construe moral norms on high (i.e. abstract) levels will have a more positive view of norms. In line with this, high construal level leaders are likely to be willing to enforce moral norms through discipline in response to follower moral transgressions.Low construal level leaders, in contrast, actively avoid doing so. We show this effect in different contexts and for different types of leader discipline.

Contradictory recommendations persist on how leaders best communicate goals to followers. Whereas scholars of visionary leadership recommend emphasizing the desirability of preferred end‐states, scholars of goal setting argue that the perceived feasibility of a goal determines motivation. This paper proposes and tests a synthesis based on construal level theory. Under relatively high (i.e., abstract) levels of construal, such as when leader–follower distance is relatively large, leader appeals that emphasize desirability (i.e., desirable appeals) are more likely to be effective than appeals that emphasize feasibility (i.e., feasible appeals). Under relatively low (i.e., concrete) levels of construal, such as when leader–follower distance is relatively small, feasible appeals are more likely to be effective. Two experimental studies in two different countries provide support for our predictions.

In contrast to the abundance of evidence on employee reactions to manager unfairness, we know very little about factors that predict whether managers will act fairly or not. This paper explores the effect of procedural unfairness that emanates from higher level managers on procedural fairness enactment at lower levels in the organization. We argue that lower level managers can enact both more and less fair procedures in response to higher level unfairness and that this depends on the extent to which lower level managers define the self in terms of their relation with their higher level manager (i.e., relationalinterdependent self-construal). We study both the moderating role of self-construal and how it is embedded in the physical environment of the organization. We pay particular attention to how spatial distance between higher and lower management affects selfconstrual at lower levels and -because of this relationship -the enactment of fair procedures within the organization. We conduct four studies (in two of which we study spatial distance as an antecedent for self-construal) and show that relatively high levels of relational-interdependent self-construal lead to assimilation in terms of procedural fairness enactment, whereas relatively low levels lead to contrast. FAIRNESS ENACTMENT AS RESPONSE TO HIGHER LEVEL UNFAIRNESS: THE ROLES OF SELF-CONSTRUAL AND SPATIAL DISTANCEIf one conclusion is warranted after four decades of research, it would be that procedural fairness matters (Colquitt et al., 2013). Employees care strongly about fairly enacted procedures (Rupp, 2011) and, in particular, the experience of unfair procedures generally motivates strong negative responses (Brockner, Tyler, & Cooper-Schneider, 1992; De Cremer, 2004). Indeed, procedural fairness has been shown to have substantial effects on virtually all important organizational outcomes (Cropanzano & Stein, 2009).Given these pervasive effects, it is surprising that research addressing factors that influence whether managers enact fair procedures (or not) is still in its infancy (Scott, Colquitt, & Paddock, 2009). For instance, there is some evidence that aspects of the manager-employee relationship and characteristics of individual managers predict whether procedures will be enacted fairly (Scott, Colquitt, & Zapata, 2007; Seppälä, Lipponen, Pirttilä-Backman, & Lipsanen, 2012). However, research has yet to go beyond the manager-employee dyad and take the broader context of the organization into account. In the present paper, we focus on procedural fairness enactment of lower level managers who interact with employees and consider whether the fairness of procedures enacted at higher levels influences fairness enactment down the line.We will argue that fairness enactment at lower levels may be influenced by higher level fairness in two different ways. First, lower level managers may assimilate higher level behavior, thus enacting procedures in an unfair manner after experiencing unfairness themselves. Alternatively, lower level manag...

Partial decision making about disciplinary responses to misbehavior is generally considered unfair and undermines the effectiveness of punishment. Nonetheless, organizational actors often struggle to remain impartial in situations that call for punishment. Impartiality appears specifically hard to obtain when some element of the transgression reflects badly upon the punisher themselves, for instance, when in the past the punisher has benefited from the misbehavior, even if just derivatively. In this paper, we argue that in such cases, punishers tend to defensively attribute causes of the transgression to the circumstances in order to protect their own selfimage, thus leading them to relatively lenient punishments. However, we also suggest that psychological impartiality can be obtained through cognitive abstraction. An abstract understanding (high-level construal) of the punitive situation puts the focus squarely on the gist of the situation and makes circumstantial details less likely to be cognitively available. This hinders defensive circumstantial attribution. We show in a field study and an experiment that partiality in making decisions about punishments occurs under conditions of low-level (i.e., concrete) construal, whereas impartiality is facilitated by high-level (i.e., abstract) construal.

A syngeneic monoclonal antibody (MAb) (IC5F5) was successfully used in the immunotherapy of Rauscher-virus-induced myeloid leukemic RMB-I cells. It is directed to a virus-encoded, but aberrantly processed protein, which is expressed on the cell membrane. When applied in vivo, it binds only to RMB-I tumor cells. BALB/c mice were inoculated i.p. or i.v. with 10(7) RMB-I cells and died within 2-3 weeks due to increasing tumor load. Mice inoculated i.p. were completely cured by daily injections of ascites containing IC5F5. Disseminated tumor cells in liver and hemopoietic organs were observed after i.v. inoculation. Daily treatment with MAbs resulted in survival beyond 90 days. No antigenic modulation was observed when tumor tissue was analyzed 2-10 days after treatment. Treatment was successful even when therapy was postponed until day 5 following inoculation of tumor cells. When the number of ascites injections was reduced, survival was identical to that observed among repeatedly treated mice. Ten- and 100-fold dilution of ascites fluid diminished the number of survivors, but still resulted in a median survival time of 38 and 20 days, respectively, as compared to 14 days for untreated mice.