Peter Kim: USC Department of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Throughout history, people have faced the question of how best to respond to a wide range of alleged and/or actual transgressions. A fundamental uncertainty, in this regard, is whether our reactions to such transgressions would differ depending on whether we respond to them as individuals or as groups. This question deserves particular scrutiny given that transgressions can often affect multiple people, the fact that our reactions to such transgressions are rarely made in isolation, the frequency with which these assessments may be made at a collective level, and the potential implications of such assessments for social and organizational life. However, the literature offers little guidance on these issues, given that previous research has focused primarily on the reactions of individuals. The present inquiry seeks to address this limitation: a) by investigating how individuals and groups might differ in their reactions to alleged transgressions, b) by determining the conditions under which such differences would arise, c) by identifying some underlying mechanisms for these differences, and d) by exploring the ways in which transitions between individual and group modes of evaluation may affect these assessments.
http://www.bec.ucla.edu/PeterKimPaper.doc