When saying sorry may not help: Transgressor power moderates the effect of an apology on forgiveness in the workplace

Abstract

When saying sorry may not help AbstractAn apology, as an expression of remorse, can be an effective response from a transgressor to obtain forgiveness from a victim. Yet, to be effective, the victim should not construe the transgressor's actions in a cynical way. Because low-power people tend to interpret the actions of high-power people in a cynical way, we argue that an apology (vs. no apology)from high-power transgressors should be relatively ineffective in increasing forgiveness from low-power victims. We find support for this moderated mediation model in a critical incidents study (Study 1), a forced recall study (Study 2) among employees from various organizations, and a controlled laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3).These studies reveal the limited value of expressions of remorse by high-power people in promoting forgiveness.

Why did I say sorry? Apology motives and transgressor perceptions of reconciliation

“…Future research and theoretical models of reconciliation are needed to incorporate other transgressor‐specific antecedents. For example, it may be fruitful to consider the role of transgressor dispositional factors (Howell, Dopko, Turowski, & Buro, ), transgressor power (Zheng, van Dijke, Leunissen, Giurge, & De Cremer, ), or transgressor regret (Exline et al, ) when theorizing about the role of apology in the reconciliation process. Ultimately, to understand dyadic reconciliation, more research and theorizing about the transgressor perspective is needed.…”

To Excuse or Not to Excuse: Effect of Explanation Type and Provision on Reactions to a Workplace Behavioral Transgression

“…We focused our studies on one specific transgression-lateness to a workplace meeting-yet perhaps more severe or personally significant transgressions could lead to a different pattern of results. Many studies in this research area use a critical incident technique to prompt participants to think of the last time someone did something that offended them at work and then to write the explanation offered by the transgressor (e.g., Aquino, Tripp, & Bies, 2006;Bies & Shapiro, 1987;Tata, 2002;Zheng, van Dijke, Leunissen, Giurge, & De Cremer, 2016). Much attention has been focused on the explanation but fairly little work has explored the properties of the event that is being explained.…”

Breaking (the) ice : communication error management in law enforcement interactions

“…All these features may have an impact on the outcomes of our observed communication behavior, being either positive or negative. For example, it is previously argued that the tone of the response strategy determines whether something is considered sincere or not (Oostinga et al, 2018-a), and in turn research shows that sincerity determines whether responses lead to forgiveness or not (Zheng et al, 2016). Follow-up research may therefore take non-verbal behavior into account and find out how our findings translate to other interaction media.…”

“…For example, Coombs (1999) found that organizations who showed compassion after a crisis improved on their organizational reputation. Similarly, research on interpersonal relationships by Zheng et al (2016) demonstrates that after a transgression showing remorse can be an effective response to obtain forgiveness. Although these three categories of research each provide a deeper understanding of error making and management, the studies assess the different stages of error management in isolation.…”

“…The third category of research considers the effect of errors on the error receiver (Coombs, 1999;Eubanks & Mumford, 2010;Thoroughgood et al, 2013;Zheng, Van Dijke, Leunissen, Giurge, & De Cremer, 2016). For example, Coombs (1999) found that organizations who showed compassion after a crisis improved on their organizational reputation.…”