Moral Repair in the Workplace: A Qualitative Investigation and Inductive Model

Jerry Goodstein, Ken Butterfield, Nathan Neale

Journal of Business Ethics · 2016 · Volume 138 · Issue 1

Abstract

The topic of moral repair in the aftermath of breaches of trust and harmdoing has grown in importance within the past few years. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study that offers insight into a series of key issues related to offender efforts to repair interpersonal harm in the workplace: (1) What factors motivate offenders to make amends with those they have harmed? (2) In what ways do offenders attempt to make amends? (3) What outcomes emerge from attempts to make amends? Drawing from the findings, we build an inductive model intended to guide future business ethics and management inquiry and research in this area.

Keywords

Moral repair, Interpersonal harm, Making amends, Forgiveness, Qualitative research

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