Moral Outrage and Public Shaming on Social Media: Role of Organizational Affiliation and Identification

Abstract

With increasing public shaming incidents on social media that involve organizations and their members, its mechanisms in association with organizations are still not well known. We draw research attention to this phenomenon by spotlighting the role of the transgressor’s organizational affiliation and organizational members’ own organizational identification. Across two experimental studies, we first investigate an important mediation mechanism through which moral convictions triggered by social media posts lead to moral outrage and ensuing public shaming intentions. Using intergroup emotions theory as a theoretical guide, we further examine the role of organizational affiliation and identification. Specifically, we found that when the inter-organizational relationship is salient, organizational members with higher identification are likely to experience more outrage toward a transgressor from a different organization rather than their own organization. Moreover, we found that organizational members demonstrate less outrage when comments on the post are primarily made by those from a rival organization. We discuss the contributions of these findings to management theory and practice.