To Punish or to Forgive: Managerial Responses to Unethical Employee Behavior from an Organizational Ethical Culture Perspective
从组织伦理文化视角，探讨管理者对员工不道德行为应惩罚还是原谅，并引入犯错者自我惩罚作为和解路径，为管理者提供决策参考。
Abstract This article examines whether management should respond to unethical employee behavior with punishment or forgiveness from the perspective of how these responses influence the ethical culture of an organization. Using expressive punishment theory, this article argues that both punishment and forgiveness can positively influence various dimensions of an organization’s ethical culture. However, as these managerial responses are mutually exclusive, this article introduces self-punishment by offenders as an alternative path to reconciliation. Reconciliation becomes viable when self-punishment, understood as morally reparative action, generates effects that are comparable to those of managerial punishment in improving the ethical culture of the organization. Based on the organizational ethical culture model, this article proposes specific criteria for self-punishment. When these criteria are met, self-punishment enables management to forgive offenders, thus creating space for further improving the organization’s ethical culture.