When Fairness Fails to Earn Gratitude: Explaining Negative Megaphoning

Gratitude in organizations is often assumed to arise naturally from fair or favorable treatment. Drawing on moral affect theory, we challenge this assumption by arguing that gratitude is a moral emotion that emerges only when such treatment as benevolent rather than instrumentally motivated or contingent on expectations of repayment. Focusing on supervisors as central organizational representatives, we propose that overall supervisory justice perceptions (OSJP) elicit employee gratitude, which in turn discourages employees from engaging in negative megaphoning—informal communication that broadcasts unfavorable views about the organization to internal and external audiences. We further argue that this process depends on supervisors' bottom-line mentality (BLM), which shapes employees' attributions regarding the motives underlying fair treatment. Using three-wave data from 419 employees in the United States and United Kingdom, structural equation modeling supports a first-stage moderated mediation model. OSJP positively predicts gratitude, gratitude negatively predicts internal and external negative megaphoning, and gratitude mediates this relationship. However, high supervisor BLM weakens the OSJP–gratitude link and eliminates the indirect effect. These findings clarify when OSJP elicits gratitude and identify BLM as a key boundary condition shaping gratitude's moral force.