To prevent unethical behaviour by employees, many companies include compliance aspects in their compensation schemes. For example, ex-post bonus adjustments allow managers to retract parts of bonuses previously paid to employees in reaction to fraudulent behaviour. We propose that the level of ex-post adjustment due to an employee’s misconduct depends on the employee’s ex-ante objective performance. We further propose that this effect is reduced when the managers must justify their final bonus decision, in which they can adjust a preliminary determined bonus. We conduct two experiments and find evidence confirming our hypotheses. The participants’ subjective ex-post bonus reduction is lower (higher) when the employees’ ex-ante objective performance is higher (lower). Additionally, our data show that increasing participants’ accountability by asking participants to justify their final bonus decision reduces this effect. Further analyses show – in line with what the halo effect proposes – that participants’ perception of employee morality mediates the effect of objective performance on the ex-post bonus reduction. This mediation is moderated by the presence of justification. Our findings expand prior research and can help firms implement remuneration schemes that foster compliant employee behaviour.

为了防止员工的不道德行为，许多公司在其薪酬计划中都包括合规性方面。例如，事后奖金调整允许经理撤回以前为欺诈行为而支付给员工的部分奖金。我们建议，由于员工的不当行为而导致的事后调整水平取决于员工事前的客观绩效。我们进一步建议，当经理必须证明其最终奖金决定是合理的，他们可以调整初步确定的奖金时，可以降低这种影响。我们进行了两个实验，并找到了证实我们假设的证据。当员工的事前客观绩效较高（较低）时，参与者的主观事后奖金减少较低（较高）。此外，我们的数据表明，通过要求参与者证明其最终奖金决定的合理性来增强参与者的责任感会降低这种影响。进一步的分析表明-与光环效应的提出一致-参与者对员工道德的看法介导了客观绩效对事后奖金减少的影响。这种调解因存在正当理由而受到缓和。我们的发现扩大了先前的研究范围，可以帮助公司实施薪酬计划，以促进合规的员工行为。