The Covid-19 pandemic placed unprecedented strain on healthcare professionals worldwide. In this paper, I study how the pandemic challenged professional moral values, and how professionals addressed these challenges. To do so, I analyzed 51 unsolicited personal diaries of nurses working in Covid wards across the U.S., as well as 115 interviews, documents, and observational data. I describe how nurses during the pandemic experienced moral injury, i.e., the violation of deeply held moral values resulting in shame and guilt. My findings reveal nurses responded in two distinct ways. Adapters shifted from embracing collective professional moral values to reconstructing their moral values based on individual interpretation. By redefining moral values, allowing uncomfortable emotions to surface, and focusing on the positive, these nurses were able to regain moral control, self-respect, and pride in their work. In contrast, by avoiding moral questions, suppressing their emotions, and focusing on the negative, suppressors failed to reclaim moral control and overcome moral injury, even after the crisis subsided. These different responses had significant implications for organizational and professional retention. The study advances the literature on moral injury, moral values, and emotional regulation in organizations by revealing how individual responses to moral injury influence retention and well-being.
