A General Theory of Organizational Stigma

By Cynthia E. Devers, Todd Dewett, Yuri Mishina, Carrie A. Belsito. Organ. Sci., 2009

354 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In recent years, the term stigma has been widely applied to organizations. However, scholars have yet to advance a theoretically consistent definition or comprehensive theory of organizational stigma. The purpose of this paper is to define the construct of organizational stigma and provide a general theory that explains the conditions under which organizational stigmas are likely to arise, how this process unfolds, and the initial effects stigmas inflict on organizations. In doing so, we distinguish organizational stigma from both individual-level stigma and the organizational-level constructs of reputation, status, celebrity, and legitimacy. We then build upon multiple streams of research to develop a richer theoretical explanation of the roles social context, social processes, and social actors play in the origination and effects of an organizational stigma.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/756ea638c67e48850cd4fbe3895e6385b646b9fb

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In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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Citations in the corpus

Which of These Things Are Not Like the Others? Comparing the Rational, Emotional, and Moral Aspects of Reputation, Status, Celebrity, and Stigma (2019, background): “, 2006) and from neutral to negative in the case of stigma (Devers et al., 2009; Hudson, 2008).”
Reputation as a Benefit and a Burden? How Stakeholders’ Organizational Identification Affects the Role of Reputation Following a Negative Event (2016, background): “Third, our theory and findings have the potential to contribute to research on organizational stigma (Devers et al., 2009; Haack, Pfarrer, & Scherer, 2014; Pollock, Mishina, & Seo, 2016; Vergne, 2012).”
How firms respond to financial restatement : CEO successors and external reactions (2014, background): “” Removing leaders seen as responsible for financial restatement serves as a straightforward signal of the firm’s intent to deal seriously with the problem (Agrawal, Jaffe, & Karpoff, 1999; Devers et al., 2009; Wiesenfeld et al., 2008).”
Corporate social responsibility reporting and organizational stigma: the case of "sin" industries. (2016, background): “…labeling theory which is grounded in the sociology of deviance (Erickson, 1962; Gibbs & Erickson, 1975), researchers adopting this perspective draw attention to processes by which various stakeholders identify firms with negatively-evaluated groups of companies (Devers et al ., 2009; Hudson, 2008).”
Are network effects really all about size? The role of structure and conduct (2013, background): “In addition to reputation and trust, strong ties and the threat of social sanctioning can also reduce opportunism, thereby improving the value of a network to users and providers (Uzzi, 1997; Westphal and Khanna, 2003; Devers et al., 2009).”
Signaler Credibility, Signal Susceptibility, and Relative Reliance on Signals: How Stakeholders Change their Evaluative Processes After Violation of Expectations and Rehabilitative Efforts (2017, background): “This could include, for example, missing earnings targets (Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rindova, 2010), engaging in behavior that is viewed to be illegitimate (Devers et al., 2009), and engaging in illegal activities (Mishina, Dykes, Block, & Pollock, 2010).”
Guilty by Association: Product-Level Category Stigma and Audience Expectations in the U.S. Craft Beer Industry (2018, background): “These attributes lead these consumers to discredit the prototypical product, which leads to labeling of the category as stained or flawed (Devers et al., 2009).”
Legitimacy‐as‐Feeling: How Affect Leads to Vertical Legitimacy Spillovers in Transnational Governance (2014, neutral): “The more distal the points on the vertical axis, the stronger the perception of legitimacy or illegitimacy (Devers et al., 2009; Elsbach and Sutton, 1992; Hudson, 2008).”
A Burden of Responsibility: The Role of Social Approval at the Onset of a Crisis (2014, background): “However, unlike social approval and legitimacy, an organization’s reputation is generated from how well it meets different evaluators’ specific and idiosyncratic expectations (Devers et al., 2009; Fombrun, 2012; Lange et al., 2011; Rindova et al., 2007).”
Organizations Gone Wild: The Causes, Processes, and Consequences of Organizational Misconduct (2010, background): “In addition, status and social capital may engender positive affect (Wiesenfeld et al, 2008 ; Zajonc, 1980 ) that counters the negative affect‐laden attributions inherent in stigmatization (Devers, Dewett, Mishina, & Belsito, 2009 ), and thus helps observers rationalize the behavior of high‐statu”
Investor Perceptions of Financial Misconduct: The Heterogeneous Contamination of Bystander Firms (2015, background): “…to mean that the offender’s “values are globally and completely incongruent” with those of the stakeholder (i.e., “generalized value incongruence”; Devers et al., 2009: 160), and thus leads to the vilification of the offender by the stakeholder such that this negative labeling successfully…”
Asset Divestment as a Response to Media Attacks in Stigmatized Industries (2014, background): “uncontested sectors of the economy (Devers et al., 2009).”
Entrepreneurial Storytelling, Future Expectations, and the Paradox of Legitimacy (2014, background): “Moreover, by severing ties with actors, ideas, and technologies that have become discredited, a venture can mitigate loss of legitimacy by association (Devers et al. 2009).”