Off-Duty Deviance in the Eye of the Beholder: Implications of Moral Foundations Theory in the Age of Social Media

• Published in: Journal of business ethics 2021-09, Vol.172 (3), p.605-620
• Main Authors: Cook, Warren, Kuhn, Kristine M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alcohol use; Behavior; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Colleagues; Criminality; Deviance; Dismissal; Education; Employees; Employers; Ethics; Fairness; Firings; Hiring; Management; Mass media; Morality; Norms; Organizational policy; Original Paper; Philosophy; Quality of Life Research; Social media; Social networks; Third party; Work; Workers
• ISSN: 0167-4544; 1573-0697
• DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04501-9

Drawing from moral foundations theory, we show that differences in sensitivity to distinct moral norms help explain differences in the perceived (un)fairness of punishing employees for off-duty deviance. We used an initial study to validate realistic examples of non-criminal behavior that were perceived as violating a specific moral foundation. Participants in the main study (n = 166) evaluated scenarios in which co-workers were fired for those behaviors, which took place outside of work but were revealed via social media. The extent to which participants valued the norm violated by the co-worker positively predicted perceived fairness of the firing, and negatively predicted expressed intent to take retributive action against the responsible manager. This effect was moderated by the presence of a pre-existing organizational policy regarding off-duty conduct, which uniformly decreased negative reactions to the firing. Because social media now makes the revelation of an employee's off-duty behavior to a broad audience increasingly likely, our results suggest the importance of developing an approach for responding to employee off-duty deviance while highlighting the relevance of moral pluralism to the study of third-party reactions.