Abstract
Employees with self-perceived misattributed culpability or incompetence (SMCI) are on the receiving end of complaints, reprimands, or accusations which, from their perspective, incorrectly assume that that they have fallen short of required standards or outcomes. We analyzed an archive of 23 personal stories featuring SMCI, which had been provided by 16 Hong Kong Chinese employees. The stories indicated that the most severe impacts on employee morale had arisen from punitive and targeted feedback based on misrepresentations by superiors, who had engaged in blame deflection, politicking and manipulation, conflict and retaliation, and/or prejudice and stereotyping. We also identified organizational processes, such as soliciting and accepting voice and engaging in problem solving discussions that could attenuate any adverse emotional impact.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 103-128 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Asian Journal of Business Ethics |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 30 Apr 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
Funding
The research was funded by a Competitive Earmarked Research Grant LU 3013/02H from the Hong Kong University Grants Committee.
Keywords
- Misattributed culpability
- Misattributed incompetence
- Organizational justice