This article extends current models of how consumers judge or perceive organizations as greedy using the theoretical framework of motivated moral reasoning. We show that inherent features of an organization (size and ‘black sheep’ status) and its behaviour (relative frequency) bias consumer perceptions of organizational greed. We use an experimental methodology, present subjects with vignettes describing different scenarios, validate our questionnaire using confirmatory factor analysis, and test our hypotheses using a general linear model with covariates. Our findings suggest that consumer perceptions of organizational greed are subject to three effects: the underdog effect (Study 1, n = 496), the black sheep effect (Study 2, n = 229) and the ‘common is moral’ heuristic (Study 3, n = 249). This is the first study to investigate greed under a motivated reasoning paradigm and to show that perceptions of organizational greed are subject to socio-psychological biases. This study also provides advice on branding and positioning strategies that appeal to the underdog status of an organization or its local origins.

中文翻译：

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消费者对组织贪婪认知的偏见

本文扩展了当前模型，即消费者如何使用动机道德推理的理论框架来判断或感知组织是否贪婪。我们表明，组织的固有特征（规模和“害群之马”地位）及其行为（相对频率）会影响消费者对组织贪婪的看法。我们使用实验方法，向受试者展示描述不同场景的小插曲，使用验证性因素分析验证我们的问卷，并使用具有协变量的一般线性模型检验我们的假设。我们的研究结果表明，消费者对组织贪婪的看法受到三种影响：失败者效应（研究 1，n  = 496）、害群之马效应（研究 2，n  = 229）和“共同的就是道德”启发式（研究 3 ,n  = 249）。这是第一项在动机推理范式下调查贪婪并表明对组织贪婪的看法受社会心理偏见影响的研究。这项研究还提供了有关品牌和定位策略的建议，以吸引组织的弱势地位或其本地起源。