Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent's decisions about organizational misconduct

Cattani, Gino; Clemente, Marco; Durand, Rodolphe; Mai, Ke Michael

doi:10.1111/joms.12894

Publication type:	Article in scientific journal
Type of review:	Peer review (publication)
Title:	Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent's decisions about organizational misconduct
Authors:	Cattani, Gino Clemente, Marco Durand, Rodolphe Mai, Ke Michael
et. al:	No
DOI:	10.1111/joms.12894
Published in:	Journal of Management Studies
Issue Date:	2-Dec-2022
Publisher / Ed. Institution:	Wiley
ISSN:	0022-2380 1467-6486
Language:	English
Subjects:	Organizational misconduct; Social norm; Rule; Value; Social-control agent; Audience; agreement; Advertising
Subject (DDC):	658.408: Security management, environmental management
Abstract:	Social control agents (SCAs) discipline organizations and draw the line between appropriate organizational behaviour and misconduct. While prior research focuses on the SCA-organization relationship, we theorize how a key audience (people) interacts with an SCA depending on its decisions to sanction or not organizational misconduct. Building on sociological and organizational research on social norms and their enforcement, we expect that people are more likely to agree with an SCA that sanctions a behaviour that violates rule-based as opposed to value-based norms. Violations of rule-based norms generate more agreement because such norms are less ambiguous and ascertaining when they are violated is easier to establish. As people agree more with SCA decisions to sanction rule-based violations, we expect that the propensity of people to resort to the SCA increases. We find support for our hypotheses with a survey, a series of experiments, and the analysis of complete data on complaints by UK citizens to the Advertising Standards Authority – the UK SCA on advertising – over the period 2007–10. Our paper contributes to research in organizational misconduct by showing how SCAs are both an evaluating entity and an evaluated one and by shedding light on how people co-determine what an acceptable or unacceptable behaviour is. Our paper uniquely links macro- and micro-level studies on corporate misconduct, putting centre stage that SCA's authority essentially depends on a key audience's agreement with the SCAs' underlying norms that underpin their decisions.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/27334
Related research data:	https://osf.io/h9k5v/?view_only=a597dc1e4ab847639cfa331d3daafcb2
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Management and Law
Organisational Unit:	Center for Corporate Responsibility (CCR)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Management and Law

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Cattani, G., Clemente, M., Durand, R., & Mai, K. M. (2022). Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent’s decisions about organizational misconduct. Journal of Management Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12894

Cattani, G. et al. (2022) ‘Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent’s decisions about organizational misconduct’, Journal of Management Studies [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12894.

G. Cattani, M. Clemente, R. Durand, and K. M. Mai, “Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent’s decisions about organizational misconduct,” Journal of Management Studies, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1111/joms.12894.

CATTANI, Gino, Marco CLEMENTE, Rodolphe DURAND und Ke Michael MAI, 2022. Who controls the controller? : people reaction to social control agent’s decisions about organizational misconduct. Journal of Management Studies. 2 Dezember 2022. DOI 10.1111/joms.12894

Cattani, Gino, Marco Clemente, Rodolphe Durand, and Ke Michael Mai. 2022. “Who Controls the Controller? : People Reaction to Social Control Agent’s Decisions About Organizational Misconduct.” Journal of Management Studies, December. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12894.

Cattani, Gino, et al. “Who Controls the Controller? : People Reaction to Social Control Agent’s Decisions About Organizational Misconduct.” Journal of Management Studies, Dec. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12894.