More Blame and More Shame: A Cultural Perspective on Leaders' Decision to Resign

In times of corporate crisis, organizational leaders from collectivist cultures are much more likely to resign in response to corporate wrongdoings than organizational leaders from individualistic cultures. We propose that because organizational leaders from collectivist cultures tend to have a collective agency orientation and stronger identification with their company - the offending group, they will take blame more frequently than organizational leaders from individualistic cultures. Furthermore, we argue that organizational leaders with collectivist cultural backgrounds will attribute the corporate transgression to stable, uncontrollable, and global causes, which will lead them to experience more collective shame than organizational leaders with an individualistic cultural background. Both blame-taking behavior and feelings of collective guilt will result in organizational leaders' resignation, which provides explanations to the cultural differences between collectivist cultures and individualistic cultures regarding organizational leaders' resignation.