Although company narratives frequently emphasize impressive sales numbers and market lead-ership, such an organizational “top dog” narrative can backfire when companies are accused of engaging in unethical conduct. This research demonstrates, through a series of nine (N = 3872) experimental studies, that an organizational top dog (vs. underdog) narrative increases the in-tended punishment of company moral transgressions but not non-moral transgressions. Such differences in intended punishment emerge because observers infer that organizations with a top dog narrative use predominantly dominance-based strategies to achieve their status, whereas companies with an underdog narrative are less likely perceived as employing such strategies. We provide preliminary evidence that a debiasing intervention decreases the harsher punish-ment of organizations with a top dog narrative but does not affect the punishment of organiza-tions with an underdog narrative.