UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome Professor Jiyin Cao, Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, to host a research seminar discussing; ’ Why hierarchies fail to discipline:Dehumanization in hierarchical organizations weakens informal control and fuels the spread of wrongdoing’.

Abstract:

Wrongdoing is often more pervasive in hierarchical organizations, despite their reputation for strong formal control. We argue that this hierarchy–wrongdoing paradox arises because the very mechanism that enables hierarchy’s formal control—dehumanization—also causes its informal control to collapse. Dehumanization helps organizations enforce top-down authority by promoting obedience, emotional distance, and compliance with formal rules. Yet this same mechanism reduces members’ moral sensitivity and weakens their willingness to respond to misconduct.

As a result, it erodes informal, observer-driven social control—the everyday, decentralized responses through which coworkers hold one another accountable. Studies 1A and 1B, using archival data from U.S. federal employees and survey data from full-time employees in India, show that employees in more hierarchical organizations are less likely to address colleagues’ wrongdoing. Study 2, drawing on machine-learning and large-language-model analyses of Fortune 500 employee reviews, finds higher levels of dehumanization and misconduct in more hierarchical firms. Studies 3A and 3B demonstrate experimentally that hierarchy heightens observers’ experienced dehumanization, which suppresses their willingness to punish wrongdoing and increases their own misconduct. Study 4 confirms that this effect applies specifically to observers without authority, not to formal powerholders. Together, these findings challenge the view that hierarchies foster stricter discipline, revealing instead how dehumanization in hierarchies loosens informal control and fuels wrongdoing.