Publications
34 results found
Huai-ching Liu E, Chambers CR, Moore C, 2023, Fifty years of research on leader communication: what we know and where we are going, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol: 34, ISSN: 1048-9843
One of the most important things leaders do is communicate. Though research on leaders’ communication has been active for half a century, to date there has been little effort to review it comprehensively and systematically. In this paper we review 260 articles that use leaders’ actual communication (textual, aural, and video) as data. We group these studies into four broad categories as a function of whether they focus on the (1) content and style, (2) antecedents, or (3) outcomes of leader communication, or (4) use leaders’ communication data to infer leader attributes that are unrelated to communication. We document how empirical methodologies to analyze verbal and nonverbal communication have advanced over time, with early labor-intensive coding methods joined by more automatic and computer-based approaches, including Machine Learning. We conclude by discussing how this research has extended and enriched dominant leadership theories and suggest future opportunities for studies that use leader communication as a focal construct or input.
Pozner J-E, Mohliver AC, Moore C, 2023, The certification effect of new legislation: CEO accountability for misconduct after Sarbanes-Oxley, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol: 85, Pages: 11-33, ISSN: 0733-558X
We investigate how firms’ responses to misconduct change when the institutional environment becomes more stringent. Organizational theory offers conflicting perspectives on whether new legislation will increase or decrease pressure on firms to take remedial action following misconduct. The dominant perspective posits that new legislation increases expectations of firm behavior, amplifying pressure on them to take remedial action after misconduct. A more recent perspective, however, suggests that the mere necessity to meet more stringent regulatory requirements certifies firms as legitimate to relevant audiences. This certification effect buffers firms, reducing the pressure for them to take remedial action after misconduct. Using a temporary, largely arbitrary exemption from a key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we show that firms that were not required to meet all the regulatory standards of good governance it required became 45% more likely to replace their CEOs following the announcement of an earnings restatement after Sarbanes-Oxley. On the other hand, those that were required to meet all of Sarbanes-Oxley’s provisions became 26% less likely to replace their CEOs following a restatement announcement. Ironically, CEOs at firms with a legislative mandate intended to increase accountability for corporate misconduct shoulder less blame than do CEOs at firms without such legislative demands.
Pozner JE, Mohliver A, Moore C, 2022, Shine a light: How firm responses to announcing earnings restatements changed after Sarbanes-Oxley, Business and the Ethical Implications of Technology, Pages: 121-137, ISBN: 9783031187933
We explore how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 created pressure for firms to take more visible and costly corrective action following the announcement of an earnings restatement. Building on theory about focusing events, the institutional effects of legislative change, and the agenda-setting role of the media, we propose that Sarbanes-Oxley created reactive normative pressure on firms that announce earnings restatements, increasing the likelihood of CEO replacement in their aftermath. We theorize that Sarbanes-Oxley changed the meaning-and therefore the impact-of media coverage of earnings restatements. Our findings show that firm behavior after Sarbanes-Oxley did change in ways that are consistent with the intent of the legislation: to increase executives' accountability for the reliability of their firms' financial statements. Moreover, we show this change is a result both of the direct effect of the legislation on increasing CEO accountability as well as through intensifying the effect of the media spotlight on misconduct.
Palanski M, Newman A, Leroy H, et al., 2021, Quantitative research on leadership and business ethics: examining the state of the field and an agenda for future research, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol: 168, Pages: 109-119, ISSN: 0167-4544
In this article, the co-editors of the Leadership and Ethics: Quantitative Analysis section of the journal outline some of the key issues about conducting quantitative research at the intersection of business, ethics, and leadership. They offer guidance for authors by explaining the types of papers that are often rejected and how to avoid some common pitfalls that lead to rejection. They also offer some ideas for future research by drawing upon the opinions of four noted experts in the field to consider the types of research questions we should be asking, the types of theory we should be building, the types of models we should be testing, and the types of methods we should be using.
De Cremer D, Moore C, 2020, Toward a Better Understanding of Behavioral Ethics in the Workplace, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol: 7, Pages: 369-393, ISSN: 2327-0608
The emerging field of behavioral ethics has attracted much attention from scholars across a range of different disciplines, including social psychology, management, behavioral economics, and law. However, how behavioral ethics is situated in relation to more traditional work on business ethics within organizational behavior (OB) has not really been discussed yet. Our primary objective is to bridge the different literatures on ethics within the broad field of OB, and we suggest a full-fledged approach that we refer to as behavioral business ethics. To do so, we review the foundations and research foci of business ethics and behavioral ethics. We structure our review on three levels: the intrapersonal level, interpersonal level, and organizational level. For each level, we provide relevant research examples and outline where more research efforts are needed. We conclude by recommending future research opportunities relevant to behavioral business ethics and discuss its practical implications.
Pozner J-E, Mohliver A, Moore C, 2019, Shine a light: how firm responses to announcing earnings restatements changed after sarbanes–oxley, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol: 160, Pages: 427-443, ISSN: 0167-4544
We explore how the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 created pressure for firms to take more visible and costly corrective action following the announcement of an earnings restatement. Building on theory about focusing events, the institutional effects of legislative change, and the agenda-setting role of the media, we propose that Sarbanes–Oxley created reactive normative pressure on firms that announce earnings restatements, increasing the likelihood of CEO replacement in their aftermath. We theorize that Sarbanes–Oxley changed the meaning—and therefore the impact—of media coverage of earnings restatements. Our findings show that firm behavior after Sarbanes–Oxley did change in ways that are consistent with the intent of the legislation: to increase executives’ accountability for the reliability of their firms’ financial statements. Moreover, we show this change is a result both of the direct effect of the legislation on increasing CEO accountability as well as through intensifying the effect of the media spotlight on misconduct.
Wakeman SW, Moore C, Gino F, 2019, A counterfeit competence: After threat, cheating boosts one's self-image, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol: 82, Pages: 253-265, ISSN: 0022-1031
In six studies, we show that after experiencing a threat to their abilities, individuals who misrepresent their performance as better than it actually is boost their feelings of competence. We situate these findings in the literature on self-protection. We show that this “counterfeit competence” effect holds when threat is measured (Study 1), manipulated (Study 2), and when the opportunity to cheat is randomly assigned (Study 3). We extend our findings to a workplace context, and show that threatened individuals who lie on a job application feel more capable than those who report them honestly (Study 4). Finally, consistent with the argument that counterfeit competence is driven by self-protection, we find individuals do not predict they would experience such a boost (Study 5), and that cheating after threat offers benefits similar to those provided by other established methods of self-protection (Study 6). Together, our findings suggest that, after threat, misrepresenting one's performance can function as a mechanism that helps to restore positive self-evaluations about one's capabilities.
Oc B, Bashshur MR, Moore C, 2019, Head above the parapet: How minority subordinates influence group outcomes and the consequences they face for doing so., Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol: 104, Pages: 929-945, ISSN: 0021-9010
Research on power often treats the recipients of powerholders' decisions (i.e., subordinates) as an undifferentiated group, overlooking how their responses to powerholders' decisions might vary and how those responses might affect powerholders' later decisions. In this article, we examine the role of lone dissenting subordinates (individuals whose feedback differs from that expressed by other group members) in shaping powerholders' allocation decisions, and explore the consequences those subordinates face for their dissent. In 3 experimental studies, we show that even as a lone voice, the feedback of a dissenting subordinate influences powerholders' decisions. Powerholders make more self-interested allocations when a lone subordinate provides consistently positive feedback, even when others provide mostly negative feedback. However, powerholders regulate their allocations when a lone subordinate provides candid feedback that points out the self-interested nature of their allocations, even when others provide consistently positive feedback. We further show that lone dissenting subordinates' influence is stronger when they share a salient group membership with the powerholder (e.g., their school or political affiliation). Finally, we find that powerholders reward lone subordinates who provide them with positive feedback, but only punish lone candid subordinates if they do not share a salient group membership with them. Overall, our results suggest that subordinates who risk putting their head above the parapet can improve outcomes for their group members, and can avoid being punished for doing so, as long as they share a salient group membership with the powerholder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Moore C, Mayer DM, Chiang FFT, et al., 2019, Leaders matter morally: the role of ethical leadership in shaping employee moral cognition and misconduct, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol: 104, Pages: 123-145, ISSN: 0021-9010
There has long been interest in how leaders influence the unethical behavior of those who they lead. However, research in this area has tended to focus on leaders’ direct influence over subordinate behavior, such as through role modeling or eliciting positive social exchange. We extend this research by examining how ethical leaders affect how employees construe morally problematic decisions, ultimately influencing their behavior. Across four studies, diverse in methods (lab and field) and national context (the United States and China), we find that ethical leadership decreases employees’ propensity to morally disengage, with ultimate effects on employees’ unethical decisions and deviant behavior. Further, employee moral identity moderates this mediated effect. However, the form of this moderation is not consistent. In Studies 2 and 4, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a weak moral identity (providing a “saving grace”), whereas in Study 3, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a strong moral identity (catalyzing a “virtuous synergy”). We use these findings to speculate about when ethical leaders might function as a “saving grace” versus a “virtuous synergy.” Together, our results suggest that employee misconduct stems from a complex interaction between employees, their leaders, and the context in which this relationship takes place, specifically via leaders’ influence over employees’ moral cognition. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Wakeman SW, Moore C, 2018, Rewarding deviants: unethical behavior as a signal of one's communal value, 78th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Publisher: Academy of Management, Pages: 12209-12209, ISSN: 0065-0668
Typically, deviance is detrimental to groups, calling norms into question and destabilizing routines. Here, however, we find support for the proposition that deviance can signal one’s value to the group. Across five studies, we show that individuals who contribute to groups either by bribing officials, lying to investors, or cheating are given better performance reviews (Study 1), offered higher compensation (Study 2), and are more likely to be selected for future tasks (Study 3) compared to members who refrain from these behaviors but contribute less to group performance. We show that this effect holds when societal (distal) standards (laws) forbid these behaviors (Study 4), but is eliminated when group (proximal) norms discourage them (Study 5). Together, these results suggest that groups maintain a localized sense of morality, valuing members who support group performance, even if their behaviors violate commonly held moral principles which discourage bribery, lying, or cheating.
Oc B, Moore C, Bashshur MR, 2018, When the tables are turned: The effects of the 2016 US Presidential election on in-group favoritism and out-group hostility, PLoS One, Vol: 13, Pages: 1-16, ISSN: 1932-6203
The outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election was a big surprise to many, as the majority of polls had predicted the opposite outcome. In this two-stage cross-sectional study, we focus on how Democrats and Republicans reacted to this electoral surprise and how these reactions might have influenced the way they allocated resources to each other in small groups. We find that, before the election, Republicans showed greater in-group favoritism than Democrats, who treated others equally, regardless of their political affiliation. We then show that Democrats experienced the election outcome as an ego shock and, in the week following the election, reported significantly higher levels of negative emotions and lower levels of self-esteem than Republicans. These reactions then predicted how individuals’ decided to allocate resources to others: after the election, Republicans no longer showed in-group favoritism, while Democrats showed out-group derogation. We find these decisions when the tables were turned can be partially explained by differences in participants’ state self-esteem.
Moore C, Lee SY, Kim K, et al., 2017, The advantage of being oneself: the role of applicant self-verification in organizational hiring decisions, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol: 102, Pages: 1493-1513, ISSN: 0021-9010
In this paper, we explore whether individuals who strive to self-verify flourish or flounder on the job market. Using placement data from 2 very different field samples, we found that individuals rated by the organization as being in the top 10% of candidates were significantly more likely to receive a job offer if they have a stronger drive to self-verify. A third study, using a quasi-experimental design, explored the mechanism behind this effect and tested whether individuals who are high and low on this disposition communicate differently in a structured mock job interview. Text analysis (LIWC) of interview transcripts revealed systematic differences in candidates’ language use as a function of their self-verification drives. These differences led an expert rater to perceive candidates with a strong drive to self-verify as less inauthentic and less misrepresentative than their low self-verifying peers, making her more likely to recommend these candidates for a job. Taken together, our results suggest that authentic self-presentation is an unidentified route to success on the job market, amplifying the chances that high-quality candidates can convert organizations’ positive evaluations into tangible job offers. We discuss implications for job applicants, organizations, and the labor market. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Moore C, Gino F, 2017, Approach, ability, aftermath: a psychological process framework of unethical behavior at work, The Academy of Management Annals, Vol: 9, Pages: 235-289, ISSN: 1941-6067
Many of the scandalous organizational practices to have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic securities to naïve investors—require ethically problematic judgments and behaviors. However, dominant models of workplace unethical behavior fail to account for what we have learned from moral psychology and cognitive neuroscience in the past two decades about how and why people make the moral decisions they do. In this review, we explain how intuition, affect, physiology, and identity support and inform more deliberative reasoning process in the construction and enactment of moral behavior. We then describe how these processes play into how individuals approach a potential moral choice, whether they have the ability in the moment to enact it, and how it is encoded in the action' aftermath, feeding back into future approaches. Throughout, we attend to the role of organizational context in influencing these processes. By reviewing this large body of research and presenting a new framework that attempts to integrate these new findings, our hope is to motivate new research about how to support more moral workplace behavior that starts from what we know now.
Stuart HC, Moore C, 2017, Shady characters: the implications of illicit organizational roles for resilient team performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol: 60, Pages: 1963-1985, ISSN: 0001-4273
In this paper we theorize about illicit roles and explore their effects on resilient team performance. We define an illicit role as one whose occupants specialize in activity forbidden by the law, regulatory bodies, or professional societies, in the belief that doing so provides a competitive advantage. Using longitudinal data on professional hockey teams, we examine the enforcer—a player who specializes in the prohibited activity of fighting. We find that team performance is more disrupted by the injury of an enforcer than by the injury of occupants of other formal roles on the team. In addition, team performance recovers more slowly after this setback to the extent the team tries to replace an enforcer, and the performance disruptions associated with his exit are magnified as a function of his experience with his team. We use these findings to develop new theory about organizational roles that operate outside official channels and formal structures. We suggest that such role occupants are more difficult to replace than their formal counterparts, in part because to enact these roles effectively requires experience in the local social context.
Derfler-Rozin R, Moore C, Staats BR, 2016, Reducing organizational rule breaking through task variety: how task design supports deliberative thinking, Organization Science, Vol: 27, Pages: 1361-1379, ISSN: 1047-7039
In this paper we argue that task design affects rule breaking in the workplace. Specifically, we propose that task variety activates deliberative (Type 2) processes as opposed to automatic/intuitive (Type 1) processes, which, in turn, helps prevent individuals from breaking rules in order to serve their own hedonic self-interest. We use data from the home loan application processing operations of a Japanese bank to establish the phenomenon in the field. We document that increased task variety at a daily level is associated with lower levels of rule breaking in the form of violating corporate break time policies (Study 1). We further explore the relationship between task variety and rule breaking in three lab experiments, using different operationalizations of rule breaking (Studies 2, 3a, and 3b) and provide direct evidence for the mediating effect of deliberative thinking in this relationship (Studies 3a and 3b). We discuss implications for rule compliance in organizations, behavioral ethics, and work design.
Palmer D, Moore C, 2016, Social networks and organizational wrongdoing in context, Organizational Wrongdoing: Key Perspectives and New Directions, Pages: 203-234, ISBN: 9781107117716
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- Citations: 9
Moore C, 2016, Always the hero to ourselves: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior, Cheating, Corruption, and Concealment: The Roots of Dishonesty, Pages: 98-119, ISBN: 9781107105393
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- Citations: 9
Moore C, Pierce L, 2016, Reactance to transgressors: why authorities deliver harsher penalties when the social context elicits expectations of leniency, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol: 7, Pages: 1-17, ISSN: 1664-1078
This paper combines experimental and field data to examine how authorities with discretion over how rules are enforced penalize transgressors when the social context of the transgression elicits expectations of leniency. Specifically, we test how transgressors are punished when it is their birthday: a day that triggers expectations of lenient treatment. First, in three scenario studies we explore individuals’ intuitions about how they would behave and expect to be treated if they transgressed on their birthdays, as well as how they would imagine penalizing a birthday transgressor. Second, using more than 134,000 arrest records for drunk driving in Washington State, we establish that police officers penalize drivers more harshly when it is their birthday. Then, in a lab experiment in which we grant participants discretion over enforcing the rules of an essay-writing contest, we test psychological reactance toward transgressors who make their birthday salient, even subtly, as the mechanism behind this increased stringency. We rule out several alternative explanations for this effect, including public safety concerns, negative affect and overcompensation for bias. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the literatures on punishment, rule-breaking, and legal transgressions.
Moore C, 2015, Moral disengagement, CURRENT OPINION IN PSYCHOLOGY, Vol: 6, Pages: 199-204, ISSN: 2352-250X
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- Citations: 142
Oc B, Bashshur MR, Moore C, 2015, Speaking truth to power: The effect of candid feedback on how individuals with power allocate resources, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol: 100, Pages: 450-463, ISSN: 0021-9010
Subordinates are often seen as impotent, able to react to but not affect how powerholders treat them. Instead, we conceptualize subordinate feedback as an important trigger of powerholders’ behavioral self-regulation and explore subordinates’ reciprocal influence on how powerholders allocate resources to them over time. In 2 experiments using a multiparty, multiround dictator game paradigm, we found that when subordinates provided candid feedback about whether they found prior allocations to be fair or unfair, powerholders regulated how self-interested their allocations were over time. However, when subordinates provided compliant feedback about powerholders’ prior allocation decisions (offered consistently positive feedback, regardless of the powerholders’ prior allocation), those powerholders made increasingly self-interested allocations over time. In addition, we showed that guilt partially mediates this relationship: powerholders feel more guilty after receiving negative feedback about an allocation, subsequently leading to a less self-interested allocation, whereas they feel less guilty after receiving positive feedback about an allocation, subsequently taking more for themselves. Our findings integrate the literature on upward feedback with theory about moral self-regulation to support the idea that subordinates are an important source of influence over those who hold power over them.
Moore C, 2015, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making: Mental Models, Milgram and the Problem of Obedience, BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY, Vol: 25, Pages: 147-150, ISSN: 1052-150X
Weber JM, Moore C, 2014, Squires: Key followers and the social facilitation of charismatic leadership, ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW, Vol: 4, Pages: 199-227, ISSN: 2041-3866
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- Citations: 10
Moore C, Tenbrunsel AE, 2014, "Just think about it"? Cognitive complexity and moral choice, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol: 123, Pages: 138-149, ISSN: 0749-5978
In this paper, we question the simplicity of the common prescription that more thinking leads to better moral choices. In three studies, we discover that the relationship between how complexly one reasons before making a decision with moral consequences is related to the outcome of that decision in a curvilinear way. Using two different moral decisions and both measuring and manipulating the level of cognitive complexity employed by the decision maker, we find that decisions made after reasoning with low and high levels of cognitive complexity are less moral than those made after reasoning at moderate levels of complexity. These results suggest that the best moral decisions are those that have been reasoned through “just enough”. Further, and at least as important, they illustrate the need to expand our study of ethical behavior beyond simple effects, and to gain a deeper understanding of the thought processes of individuals faced with moral choices.
Ruedy NE, Moore C, Gino F, et al., 2013, The Cheater's High: The Unexpected Affective Benefits of Unethical Behavior, JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol: 105, Pages: 531-548, ISSN: 0022-3514
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- Citations: 111
Moore C, Gino F, 2013, Ethically adrift: How others pull our moral compass from true North, and how we can fix it, RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: AN ANNUAL SERIES OF ANALYTICAL ESSAYS AND CRITICAL REVIEWS, VOL 33, Vol: 33, Pages: 53-77, ISSN: 0191-3085
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- Citations: 163
Moore C, Detert JR, Trevino LK, et al., 2012, WHY EMPLOYEES DO BAD THINGS: MORAL DISENGAGEMENT AND UNETHICAL ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol: 65, Pages: 1-48, ISSN: 0031-5826
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- Citations: 535
Moore C, 2009, PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN ORGANIZATIONAL CORRUPTION, PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ETHICAL BEHAVIOR AND DECISION MAKING, Editors: DeCremer, Publisher: INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING-IAP, Pages: 35-71, ISBN: 978-1-60752-105-1
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- Citations: 18
Moore C, 2008, Moral disengagement in processes of organizational corruption, JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS, Vol: 80, Pages: 129-139, ISSN: 0167-4544
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- Citations: 191
Tharenou P, Saks AM, Moore C, 2007, A review and critique of research on training and organizational-level outcomes, Human Resource Management Review, Vol: 17, Pages: 251-273, ISSN: 1053-4822
This paper aims to advance understanding of the effects of training on organizational-level outcomes by reviewing the results of previous studies that have investigated the relationship between training and human resource, performance, and financial outcomes. The results of meta-analysis from 67 studies suggest that training is positively related to human resource outcomes and organizational performance but is only very weakly related to financial outcomes. The relationship between training and firm performance may be mediated by employee attitudes and human capital. Furthermore, training appears to be more strongly related to organizational outcomes when it is matched with key contextual factors such as organization capital intensity and business strategy, in support of the contingency perspective. Further, training is related independently to organizational outcomes in support of the universalistic perspective of strategic human resource management rather than a configurational perspective. The paper concludes with a critique of previous studies and directions for future research. Particular emphasis is given to the need for future research to integrate individual-level (micro) and organizational-level (macro) training research, models, and theory. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Moore C, Gunz H, Hall DT, 2007, Tracing the historical roots of career theory in management and organization studies, Handbook of Career Studies, Pages: 13-38, ISBN: 9780761930396
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- Citations: 44
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