Judgments of Corporate Wrongdoing: The Influence of Age, Race, and Personal Effect on Third Party Appraisals and Expectations of Corporate Responses

Abstract

A survey examined how a perceiver's age, race, and the potential to be personally affected by a corporate wrongdoing influence judgments of event severity, corporate responsibility, and the degree to which a corporate response is warranted. Repeated measures analyses of judgments of four wrongdoing scenarios indicated that situations potentially affecting judges were rated higher in severity and corporate responsibility, and were viewed as meriting a corporate response. College students judged some situations as more serious than older individuals, and African-Americans largely rated situations low in personal effect as more requiring of a response than others.

Keywords:

• Apology
• Attributions
• Corporate Wrongdoing
• Race

The authors are thankful to Christian Edwards for his assistance with this project. This project was supported by an Arthur W. Page Legacy Scholar Grant awarded to both authors.

Notes

Note. Personal effect judgments are based on pretest ratings.

Note. N = 225. Cell entries are Ms, values in parentheses are SDs.

∗Mean significantly higher than scale midpoint (= 3.00), p < .001.

†Mean significantly lower than scale midpoint (= 3.00), p < .001.

Note. N = 225. Cell entries are Ms, values in parentheses are SDs.

∗Means across race and within age condition are significantly different (p < .001).

†Means within race, age, and personal effect condition are significantly different (p < .001).

‡Means within race and age condition and across effect condition are significantly different (p < .001).

^§Means within race and across age condition are significantly different (p < .001).

Note. N = 225. Cell entries are Ms, values in parentheses are SDs.

∗Means across race condition are significantly different (p < .01).

†Means within race condition and within effect condition are significantly different (p < .01).

‡Means within race condition and across effect condition are significantly different (p < .01).

Note. N = 225. Cell entries are Ms, values in parentheses are SDs.

∗Means across race condition are significantly different (p < .01).

†Means within race condition and within effect condition are significantly different (p < .01).

‡Means within race condition and across effect condition are significantly different (p < .01).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer A. Samp

Jennifer A. Samp (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999) is an associate professor in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Georgia.

Andrew I. Cohen

Andrew I. Cohen (PhD, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 1994) is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and associate director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics at Georgia State University.