Consequences of Moral Transgressions: How Regulatory Focus Orientation Motivates or Hinders Moral Decoupling

Abstract

How can firms mitigate the impact of moral violations on consumer evaluations? This question has pervaded the business ethics literature. Though prior research has identified decoupling as a moral reasoning strategy where consumers separate moral judgments from evaluations (avoiding moral compromise and dissonance), it is unclear what motivates individuals to decouple. It is the objective of this research to explore regulatory focus theory (i.e., a framework examining consumer mindsets as prevention or promotion orientated) as a motivating factor for moral decoupling. Three experiments are undertaken. Study one demonstrates that with a prevention mindset (e.g., analytical thinking) as opposed to promotion mindset (e.g., feeling-based thinking), moral decoupling can be achieved. Specifically, those in a prevention mindset report more favorable evaluations when information about a violation explicitly lowers (vs. does not lower) consequences of moral violations. However, when the violation is related to the business functionality of the brand, those in a prevention (vs. promotion) mindset report less favorable evaluations, except when consequences are lowered. This indicates an inability to decouple (studies 2–3), and results in negative emotions (study 3). The research shows that inability to decouple for those in a prevention mindset leads to negative emotions, lowering evaluations. These results contribute to the moral reasoning literature by linking regulatory focus to decoupling strategies. Further, the research bridges literature on norm activation, moral foundation, regulatory focus, and moral decoupling to reconcile theoretical differences in judgment styles. Implications for businesses and brands are discussed.

Bring Your Non-self to Work? The Interaction Between Self-decentralization and Moral Reasoning

“…With Skilful Means, individual responsibility is put into context by evaluating the karmic merit and benefit to the community rather than organizational expectations alone. The mechanism of skillful means enables practitioners to recognize the contextual and processual dimensions of self-decentralization in interpreting moral actions and intentions in the interplay between agency and context to avoid negative emotions affecting moral judgments (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2019 ). In other words, skilful means enacts practitioners’ awareness in avoiding over-attachment to any spiritual or Buddhist practice and acknowledge context-sensitivity (e.g., Shin et al, 2021 ; Vu & Burton, 2021 ) since Buddhist practices are not passive but need to be seen in context: “If you cling to it, if you fondle it, if you treasure it, if you are attached to it, then you do not understand that the teaching is similar to a raft, which is for crossing over, and not for getting hold of” (Conze, 1954 , p. 223).…”

“…Self-decentralisation as a strategy for moral reasoning moves beyond moral rationalisation (interpreting the immoral action as less immoral), moral decoupling (dissociates immoral judgments from job-related performance judgement), and the overemphasis on judgements relating to the self-concept (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2019 ). The combined mechanisms of Skilful Means and the Middle Way facilitate the idea of a contextual-relational-processual perspective to encourage individuals to cultivate self-decentralization through continuous contextualized practice and learning.…”

“…The complex organisational and institutional contexts in this study highlights how the notion of moral reasoning is heterogeneous across social and cultural contexts (Haidt, 2001 ) and the need to deconstruct the complex agentic and contextual factors impacting on moral reasoning is clear. A context of weak institutions, for example, shows how culture influences moral reasoning (e.g., Tsui & Windsor, 2001 ) and can generate tensions relating to an individuals’ moral standards (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2019 ).…”

“…Such strategies raise tensions and dissonance when individuals have to compromise their moral standards (Burton & Vu, 2020 ; Lee & Kwak, 2016 ). While tensions in moral reasoning have been addressed in the literature, such as between self-serving moral reasoning and authentic moral values in weighing different approaches, between a moral self-concept and rationalizing immoral behavior or compromising one’s moral standards (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2019 ; Thøgersen, 2004 ), the extent to which internal tensions influence ethical evaluations (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2019 ) and how different cultural contexts influence ethical decision-making (Vitell et al, 2016 ); it remains unclear how spirituality and the notion of the self from a spiritual perspective link to strategies of moral reasoning.…”

Egoism or Altruism? The Influence of Cause-Related Marketing on Customers’ Extra-Role Behavior

“…However, prevention focus customers pay more attention to the negative results caused by corporate behavior, and are more sensitive to negative information, so they tend to adopt conservative avoidance strategies or behaviors ( Sha et al, 2013 ). On the one hand, when an enterprise conducts cause-related marketing activities for the purpose of increasing product sales and obtaining more economic profits, prevention focus customers will immediately search for relevant information to infer the enterprise’s self-interested motives ( Cowan and Yazdanparast, 2019 ) and believe that the enterprise cause-related marketing is solely to improve its own economic efficiency, not to fulfill its social responsibilities. Based on this, the prevention focus customers will often have a sense of disgust and distrust toward the hypocritical behavior of enterprises using public welfare for their own benefit.…”