Perceived public condemnation and avoidance intentions: The mediating role of moral outrage

• Author: Zameer Hassan,Sara Qaisar,Usman Ghani,Jianxun Chu,Zakir Shah
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2027
• Date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Perceived public condemnation and avoidance intentions: The

mediating role of moral outrage

Zakir Shah

1

| Jianxun Chu

1

| Sara Qaisar

1

| Zameer Hassan

1

| Usman Ghani

2

1

School of Humanities and Social Sciences,

University of Science and Technology of

China, Hefei, China

2

School of Management, University of Science

and Technology of China, Hefei, China

Correspondence

Jianxun Chu, School of Humanities and Social

Sciences, University of Science and

Technology of China, Hefei, China.

Email: chujx@ustc.edu.cn

Funding information

National Science Foundation of China, Grant/

Award Number: 71573241

The effects of intrapersonal emotion on consumers' behavior have long been studied,

but the effects of interpersonal emotions on public's intentions remain poorly under-

stood. People often get angry when they observe injustice with others but not them-

selves. Drawing on emotions as social information theory, we investigated how

perceived public condemnation (knowledge that other also condemn a particular

norm violation by an organization) affects the moral outrage of public and their future

intentions toward the organization. A quantitative study was empirically examined

through a sample of 107 users of a leading riding service in Pakistan. Data were ana-

lyzed through statistical tools (IBM SPSS & AMOS 21). Finding shows that perceived

public condemnation was positively correlated with moral outrage and avoidance

intentions of individuals. However, moral outrage mediates the association between

perceived public condemnation and avoidance intentions of the public. The implica-

tions highlight the importance of a community's social norms and values to gauge the

organization's reputation in people's eyes.

1|INTRODUCTION

Emotions play a key role during crisis communications and also influ-

ence the perception and behavioral intentions of the public toward an

organization (Lu & Huang, 2018). The expression of emotions during

the crisis for the well-being of public helps in the minimization of crisis

damages, maintaining, and restoring the organizational reputation

(Xiao, Hudders, Claeys, & Cauberghe, 2018). We observe emotional

expression between service providers and customers on a daily basis,

which shapes momentary interaction as well as intentional behaviors

toward each other (Rafaeli & Miron-Spektor, 2009). Research to date

has primarily focused on the basic emotions of individuals in crisis

communication (Cote & Hideg, 2011). Generally, the public generates

negative emotions in different ways toward a corporation in the

response of unsatisfactory services or products (Van Kleef, 2010).

Such as, people engage actively in negative word-of -mouth (NWOM),

taking legal action, boycott the products and services, and record pro-

test against harms made by organizations (Marin & Rubio, 2009).

NWOM over different online sources negatively influence public

intentions and behaviors toward an organization (Jung, Wang, Mas-

lowska, & Malthouse, 2016; Lu & Huang, 2018).

Public protest and express moral emotions when they observe

violation of normal standards, injustice and unfair behavior with

workers or consumers, and have done any other ethical or social

transgression (Wetzer, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2007; Hareli, Moran-

amir, David, & Hess, 2013; Landmann, Hess, Landmann, & Hess,

2016; Van Kleef, Heerdink, & Homan, 2017). Similarly, individuals

express moral outrage in the reaction of cultural or norm violation

(Batson, Chao, & Givens, 2009), and unethical behaviors even they do

not participate nor directly affected by the corporation's unethical

behaviors (Liang, Hou, Jo, & Sarigollu, 2019). Moral outrage influences

the punitive behaviors of the public toward the transgressors (Lin-

denmeier, Schleer, & Pricl, 2012). Actual punishment or punitive

behavior toward transgressors and norm violators is essential to

maintaining cooperation in a society (Konishi, Oe, Sh, Tanaka, &

Ohtsubo, 2017). However, to get support for the punitive behaviors,

observers must keep in view the majority opinion of the public in a

community. Very smaller research has focused to investigate how the

emotional expression of the public toward moral violation by an orga-

nization influence the emotions and behaviors of observers.

Research is still needed to examine how the public's emotional

expression toward the norm violation of an organization influence the

Received: 24 April 2019 Revised: 23 June 2019 Accepted: 3 September 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2027

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2027. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2027