What We (Do Not) Know About Punishment Across Organizational Boundaries

Abstract

Though organizational scholars have studied punishment for decades, recent examples of punishment in organizations cannot be fully explained by the scholarly literature. This may be because much of our prior understanding of punishment has been based on studies in highly bounded organizations, but with the shift to remote work arrangements and contract or freelance work, modern organizations are becoming increasingly boundaryless. Does punishment in bounded organizations look different than punishment in boundaryless organizations? To answer this question, we review and categorize the literature on punishment in organizations according to the boundedness of the organization it examined. We find that though there are similarities in punishment in bounded and boundaryless organizations, punishment in boundaryless organizations involves different actors, punishing different situations, for different reasons, using different methods. However, many questions about punishment in boundaryless organizations remain, including about the pervasiveness, motivations, and impacts that punishment has in boundaryless organizations.