The Shame of It All: A Review of Shame in Organizational Life

Abstract

Shame is a powerful and relevant discrete emotion in the workplace, as organizations are rife with potential to induce shame, and reactions to shame relate to important organizationally relevant outcomes. In this article, we review shame-related research from a variety of disciplines, integrating and identifying common patterns to better understand the shame process as it relates to organizational life. In doing so, we develop a framework that outlines the more internal psychological processes at the heart of the emotion of shame and situates these processes within the context of organizations. This framework highlights the organizational factors that help instigate shame in employees (i.e., unintentional shame triggers and purposeful shaming behaviors) as well as the behavioral outcomes important to organizations (i.e., prosocial, withdrawal, and aggressive behaviors) and provides insights regarding moderators that likely impact this process. In addition, we discuss future research implications as they pertain to each of the components in our framework, hoping that our article not only improves our understanding of organizational shame but encourages much-needed future research on it.