Organizational wrongdoing tends to elicit intense emotional reactions among audiences, posing a challenge for organizations seeking to effectively manage these complex emotional dynamics. This paper aims to shed light on audiences’ emotional reactions by theorizing how the type and attribution of organizational wrongdoing lead to distinct discrete emotions, and how such reactions may be further influenced by an organization’s strategic responses. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory and key insights from the literature on wrongdoing, we theorize how audiences emotionally react to organizational wrongdoing and how organizational responses influence these reactions through a three-stage approach. Our paper ultimately contributes to the literature on organizational wrongdoing by unpacking the nuanced emotional reactions it elicits and by examining how different core cognitive appraisals drive these emotions.

ggrace2@ceibs.edu