Corporate Samaritans: The Role of Situation Strength & Moral Maturation in Deontic Justice Enactment

Abstract

The burgeoning yet fragmented literature on organizational justice enactment has so far paid limited attention to the deontic justice motive, even though research assumes the existence of innate morality in humans and moral virtues provide a critical account of why people care about fairness. Nevertheless, behavior is influenced by strong organizational norms and managers – albeit motivated – not always able to act upon their motive. While a plethora of research investigates those who lack or are able to appease their moral concerns, often called Corporate Psychopaths, only few studies have examined individuals who are able to break through the blinders imposed on them and enact justice for deontic reasons – even in the face of adversity. To shed light on the etiology of those who we name Corporate Samaritans, we draw on two important yet to date overlooked concepts in the justice enactment literature: situation strength and moral maturation – and their interaction. We argue that moral maturation predicts deontic justice enactment even in strong situations. We also further extend the term deontic justice enactment as mere compliance, “requirement-based moral rule-following” by two distinct behavioral categories that go beyond the call of duty: humanistic and supererogatory behaviors.