Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:52:26.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Corporate Scandals and Spoiled Identities: How Organizations Shift Stigma to Employees

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Extract

I apply stigma-management strategies to corporate scandals and expand on past research by (a) describing a particular type of stigma management strategy that involves accepting responsibility while denying it, (b) delineating types of stigma that occur in scandals (demographic versus character), and (c) considering the moral implications of shifting stigmas that arise from scandals. By emphasizing the distinction between character and demographic stigma, I make progress in evaluating the moral implications of shifting different types of stigma.

Type
Special Section on Accountability
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackman, D. 2005. Was Arthur Andersen a mistake? June 1: http://www.forbes.com/services/2005/06/01/cx_da_0601topnews.html.Google Scholar
Boeker, W. 1992. Power and managerial exit: Scapegoating at the top. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27: 538–47.Google Scholar
Cannella, A. A., Fraser, D. R., & Lee, D. S. 1995. Firm failure and managerial labor markets: Evidence from Texas banking. Journal of Financial Economics, 38: 185210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, M. A. 1996. Theories of punishment and empirical trends in corporate criminal sanctions. Managerial and Decision Economics, 17: 399411.3.0.CO;2-G>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crocker, J., Cornwell, B., & Major, B. 1993. The stigma of overweight: Affective consequences of attributional ambiguity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64: 6070.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crocker, J., Voekl, K., Testa, M., & Major, B. 1991. Social stigma: The affective consequences of attributional ambiguity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60: 218–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duggin, S. H. 2003. Internal corporate investigations: Legal ethics, professionalism and the employee interview. Columbia Business Law Review, 859923.Google Scholar
Dutton, J. E., & Dukerich, J. M. 1991. Keeping an eye on the mirror: Image and identity in organizational adaptation. Academy of Management Journal, 34: 517–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., & Harquail, C. V. 1994. Organizational images and member identification. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39: 239–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elaad, E. 2003. Effects of feedback on the overestimated capacity to detect lies and the underestimated ability to tell lies. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17: 349–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elangovan, A. R., & Shapiro, D. L. 1998. Betrayal of trust in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 23: 547–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsbach, K. D. 1994. Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39: 5788.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsbach, K. D., & Kramer, R. M. 1996. Members’ responses to organizational identity threats: Encountering and countering the Business Week Rankings. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 442–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsbach, K. D., Sutton, R. I., & Principe, K. E. 1998. Averting expected challenges through anticipatory impression management: A study of hospital billing. Organization Science, 9: 6886.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enrich, D. 2001. Jeffrey Wigand: The insider who blew smoke at big tobacco. U.S. News & World Report. August 20: 70.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Gullapalli, D. 2005. Andersen decision is bittersweet for ex-workers. Wall Street Journal. June 1: A6.Google Scholar
Gundlach, M. J., Douglas, S. C., & Martinko, M. J. 2003. The decision to blow the whistle: A social information processing framework. Academy of Management Review, 28: 107–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilman, M. E., Block, C. J., & Stathatos, P. 1997. The affirmative action stigma of incompetence: Effects of performance information ambiguity. Academy of Management Journal, 40: 603–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, D., McWhorter, R. S., & Fort, T. 2005. The 2004 amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines and their implicit call for a symbiotic integration of business ethics. Annual Meeting of the Society for Business Ethics, Honolulu, HI.Google Scholar
Hockstader, L. 2002. Andersen hit with maximum penalty; Judge fines firm $500,000, puts it on probation. The Washington Post. October 17: E01.Google Scholar
Hoffman, D. A., & Stetzer, A. 1998. The role of safety climate and communication in accident interpretation: Implications for learning from negative events. Academy of Management Journal, 41: 644–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hwang, S. L., & Gevelin, M. 1996. Getting personal: Brown & Williamson has 500-page dossier attacking chief critic—court files, private letters, even a suspicious flood are fodder for sleuths. The Wall Street Journal. February 1: A1.Google Scholar
Kiger, P. J. 2001. Truth and consequences: Why women who blow the whistle get burned. Working Woman. May 21: 5661.Google Scholar
Laufer, W. S. 1999. Corporate liability, risk shifting, and the paradox of compliance. Vanderbilt Law Review, 54: 1343–97.Google Scholar
Laufer, W. S. 2002. Corporate prosecution, cooperation, and the trading of favors. Iowa Law Review, 87: 643–67.Google Scholar
Laufer, W. S. 2003. Social accountability and corporate greenwashing. Journal of Business Ethics, 43: 253–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lou Dobbs Moneyline. 2002. Aired March 26. CNN.com./Transcripts. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/26/mlld.00.html.Google Scholar
Marcus, A. A., & Goodman, R. S. 1991. Victims and shareholders: The dilemmas of presenting corporate policy during a crisis. Academy of Management Journal, 34: 281305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miceli, M., & Near, J. 1997. Whistle-blowing as antisocial behavior. In Giacalone, R. A. & Greenberg, J. (Eds.), Antisocial behavior in organizations: 130–49. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Miller, R. 1995. Singapore blames Barings chiefs. The Times. October 18.Google Scholar
Moberg, D. J. 1994. Managers as judges in employee disputes: An occasion for moral imagination. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13: 453–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parmerlee, M. A., Near, J. P., & Jensen, T. C. 1982. Correlates of whistle-blowers’ perceptions of organizational retaliation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27: 1734.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, R., & Caldwell, C. B. 2005. Value chain responsibility: A farewell to the arm's length. Business and Society Review, 110: 345–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulsen, A. B., & Khanna, N. 1995. Managers of financially distressed firms: villians or scapegoats? The Journal of Finance, 50: 919–40.Google Scholar
Pratt, M. G., & Foreman, P. O. 2000. Classifying managerial responses to multiple organizational identities. Academy of Management Review, 25:1842.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, L., & Anderson, C. 1982. Shortcomings in the attribution process: On the origins and maintenance of erroneous social assessments. In Kahneman, D., Solvic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases: 129–52. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, S. G., & Lane, V. R. 2000. A stakeholder approach to organizational identity. Academy of Management Review, 25: 4362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, P. A., & Brockner, J. 2005. Individual and organizational consequences of ceo claimed handicapping: What's good for the ceo may not be so good for the firm. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 96: 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, R. I., & Callahan, A. L. 1987. The stigma of bankruptcy: Spoiled organizational image and its management. Academy of Management Journal, 30: 405–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swartz, M. 2003. Power failure: The inside story of the collapse of Enron. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Toffler, B. L. 2003. Final accounting: Ambition, greed and the fall of Arthur Andersen. New York: Broadway Books.Google Scholar
Warren, D. E. 2005. Managing non-compliance in the workplace. In Kidwell, R. E. and Martin, C. L. (Eds.), Managing Organizational Deviance: 131–49. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, D. E. 2006. Ethics initiatives: The problem of ethical subgroups. In Mannix, E. B., Neale, M., & Tenbrunsel, A. (Eds.), Research on Managing Groups and Teams: Ethics: 83100. London: Elsevier Science Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., & Magnusson, J. 1988. An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 55: 738–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodman, R. W., Ganster, D. C., Jerome, A., McCuddy, M. K., Tolchinsky, P. D., & Fromkin, H. 1982. A survey of employee perceptions of information privacy in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 25: 647–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar