Makeup Calls in Organizations: An Application of Justice to the Study of Bad Calls

Abstract

In this article, we assess whether actors provide makeup calls as amends for their wrongdoing following bad calls. We examined these effects using organizational justice as a lens. Two archival data sets from Major League Baseball and financial analysts (Study 1 and Study 3), one experimental data set (Study 2), and one mixed-method data set from a field study (Study 4) provided evidence for the positive relationship between bad calls and makeup calls. We also found evidence for a mediating effect of guilt and a first-stage moderating effect of outcome gravity. This article contributes to the literature not only by providing insight into the experience of actors who provide unfair treatment to others but also by exploring the behavioral remedies that actors use to restore justice.