ABSTRACT

Although the consequences of organizational misconduct are severe, organizational studies have underexplored the relative effectiveness of different types of punishments in deterring future misconduct. Drawing on social control theory, we examine how regulatory, economic, and social sanctioning influence the recurrence of organizational misconduct. Using a dataset of doping cases in professional cycling from 2007 to 2019, we find that following the revelation of doping offenses economic sanctioning in the form of sponsor disengagement as well as social sanctioning in the form of public shaming on Twitter reduce the likelihood of future doping in cycling teams. The deterrence effect of each sanction type, however, is nuanced: the absence of alternative sponsors and a team's strong reputation amplify the effects of economic and social sanctions respectively. We further find that regulatory sanctioning directly targeting teams are effective when regulators are highly trusted. Our study contributes to research on organizational misconduct by providing a theoretical framework that delineates how different punishments arising from formal and informal social control processes deter future organizational misconduct. It also highlights that the effectiveness of each sanction type in preventing recidivism is contingent on macro-level factors and organizational characteristics that shape perceptions of the costs of reoffending.