On being bad: Why stigma is not the same as a bad reputation Yuri Mishina The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1122 [email protected]Cynthia E. Devers A.B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University New Orleans, LA 70118 [email protected]
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On being bad: Why stigma is not the same as a bad reputation
Yuri Mishina The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management
Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1122
van Riel, 1997), who defined reputation as a collective, multidimensional judgment about
a firm by its multiple stakeholders. For all of its scholarly attention, however, this
research has focused almost exclusively on the positive or favorable end of the reputation
1 We focus our examination on how these constructs have been applied to organizations, since related constructs can have substantial differences when applied at the organizational versus individual level (e.g., Devers et al., 2009).
continuum2. In the few studies that specifically mention bad or negative reputations, the
“bad” or “negative” refers to the valence attached to the reputation construct—i.e., that
the reputation is unfavorable (Rhee & Valdez, 2009).
Conversely, scholars have focused much less attention on organizational stigma,
with most studies exploring the effects of events such as financial distress and bankruptcy
on organizational members’ perceptions, actions, and outcomes (Pozner, 2008; Semadini
et al., 2008; Sutton & Callahan, 1987; Wiesenfeld et al., 2008). Because these studies
have focused on how such events impact organizational members, the term “stigma” is
often used more as a label or a descriptor for a negatively evaluated event (e.g.,
bankruptcy), rather than a specific organizational-level construct. Further, these studies
have tended to conceptualize stigma fairly abstractly, often paraphrasing Goffman’s
(1963: 3) definition of a stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting” that reduces
the individual “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one” (Link &
Phelan, 2001)3. Examples include: stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting”
(Sutton and Callahan, 1987: 406), a “mark of social disapproval” (Fiol & Kovoor-Misra,
1997: 148), “anything that detrimentally segregates individuals” (Semadini et al., 2008:
558), “the denigration or stain the person experiences, which negatively impacts his or
her image and reputation” (Wiesenfeld et al., 2008: 232), “spoiled image” (Hudson,
2008: 252), and “negative social evaluations” (Hudson & Okhuysen, 2009: 134).
2 Although some have focused explicitly on bad or unfavorable reputations, this work is almost exclusively at the individual level. For example, Fine and colleagues (e.g., Bromberg & Fine, 2002; Ducharme & Fine, 1995; Fine, 1996, 2002a, 2002b), for example, have done numerous studies on bad reputations (what they often term “difficult” reputations; Fine, 2002a), but these are focused on the historical reputations of individual actors, such as Benedict Arnold (Ducharme & Fine, 1995) or Hitler (Fine, 2002b). 3 Interestingly, the lack of definitional clarity is also a critique of the individual-level stigma literature (Link & Phelan, 2001).
This research has advanced understanding of the life consequences individual
organizational members and affiliates encounter when enmeshed in a stigmatized
organization, but given the focus, stigma is implicitly conceptualized as an organizational
analogue to an individual-level stigma. More recently, however, some scholars have
offered definitions of stigma that are more explicitly organizational-level in nature. For
example, Pozner (2008: 144) argues that stigma is “an emergent property, determined
through the process of social interaction, whereby specific meanings are attached to
categories of behavior and individuals.” She further proposes that a stigma is an
“organizational stigma” only when observers view the organization as being at fault,
either due to the failure of organizational systems or through endorsement of a violation.
Hudson (2008) proposes that two distinct types of organizational-level stigmas may exist:
event stigmas that result from a “discrete, anomalous, episodic” event (p. 253) and core-
stigmas that are based on the “nature of the organization’s core attributes—who it is,
what it does, and whom it serves” (p. 253). Finally, Devers and colleagues (2009: 157)
explicitly define organizational-level stigma as “a label that evokes a collective
stakeholder group-specific perception that an organization possesses a fundamental,
deep-seated flaw that deindividuates and discredits the organization.” The authors further
argue that organizational-level stigmas differ from individual-level stigmas in the types
of conditions that stigmatize, how preventable or removable the stigma is, and how
pervasive the stigmatizing categories are across contexts.
Given that little research has focused on negative reputations and that stigma is
frequently defined abstractly (e.g., Devers et al., 2009; Link & Phelan, 2001), it’s not
surprising that scholars often conflate bad reputation and stigma. In the following sections,
building from Fombrun’s (1996) frequently used definition of reputation and the more
recent organizational-level conceptualizations of stigma, we explicate the similarities and
differences between organizational reputation and organizational stigma.
Theoretical Roots
The primary theoretical roots of reputation are signaling theory (e.g., Milgrom &
ability to charge price premiums (Rindova et al., 2005), greater benefits to positive
earnings surprises (Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rindova, 2010), and increased attractiveness as a
transaction partner (Dollinger et al., 1997). Not only are organizations with unfavorable
reputations unable to enjoy these benefits, they may also suffer price discounts relative to
organizations with similar quality products (Nichols & Fournier, 1999).
The primary social use for an organizational stigma is social control (Erickson,
1962; Kitsuse, 1962), and an organizational stigma leads to a variety of social and
economic sanctions for the organization and its members. By demonstrating the
differences between acceptable and unacceptable behavior and characteristics,
organizational stigma can be used to promote social stability (Erickson, 1962). A stigma
and its aftermath unfold through a sociopolitical process driven by a variety of factors,
including a desire for social justice, schadenfreude, and self-serving behavior
(Wiesenfeld, et al., 2008), and results in various types of symbolic activity, including
impression management and scapegoating (Fiol & Kovoor-Misra, 1997; Pozner, 2008;
Sutton & Callahan, 1987). As an organization becomes stigmatized, many of its
stakeholders begin to cognitively disidentify with the organization (e.g., Bhattacharya &
Elsbach, 2002; Elsbach & Battacharya, 2001), leading both clients (Jensen, 2006) and
organizational members (Semadini et al., 2008) to defect from the organization, as well
as to act in a specifically counter-organizational manner. In a study on the stigma of
chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, for example, Sutton and Callahan (1987) found that
various stakeholders reduced the quantity and quality of interactions with the stigmatized
organization, bargained for more favorable exchange relationships, spread malicious
rumors, and even directly insulted the organization and its managers, all of which directly
threatened organizational survival and success. Additionally, certain organizational
members are often blamed for the stigma and, thus, singled out for punishment (Pozner,
2008; Wiesenfeld et al., 2008).
Interrelationships between Organizational Reputation and Stigma
The differences discussed above can have important implications for the
interrelationships between organizational reputation and stigma. In this section, we
examine how those interrelationships may influence how susceptible an organization is to
a stigmatizing claim and how broadly a stigma might spread and how a stigma may
influence an organization’s existing reputation.
Reputation and Susceptibility to Stigmatizing Claims and the Spread of Stigma.
Extending Goffman’s (1963) argument that actors who are held in high regard are
able to engage in some deviant behaviors without fear of sanction (see also Hollander,
1958, 1960), we argue that a organization’s existing reputation influences the stickiness
of a stigmatizing claim. This is largely because stakeholders use the focal organization’s
existing reputation as a filter to determine whether or not a stigmatizing claim appears to
be consistent with what they “know” about the firm (e.g., Fiol-Kovoor-Misra, 1997).
Given the presumption that reputable organizations will behave in reliable, credible,
trustworthy, and responsible ways (e.g., Fombrun, 1996; Love & Kraatz, 2009), a strong
positive reputation may bolster an organization’s ability to defend against a stigmatizing
label.
Nevertheless, because reputation is comprised of stakeholder evaluations along a
multitude of dimensions, an organization’s reputation is only likely to influence its
credibility if it is relevant to the domain of the potentially stigmatizing claim (e.g.,
environmental responsibility, product quality). If the targeted organization’s reputation is
supportive of its counter-claims then it is likely to be viewed as more credible, while a
reputation that is contrary to its counter-claims (or is supportive of the labeler’s claims)
increases the likelihood that stakeholders will accept the validity of the stigmatizing
label.
A targeted firm’s reputation may also influence whether other groups perceive it
as deviant and how broadly the stigma may spread. Specifically, although a stigma is
both stakeholder- and context-specific (Devers et al., 2009), the organization’s reputation
is likely to affect the symbolic value of the organization as a target, as well as the
reactions of other actors, and thereby influence whether or not the targeted organization is
stigmatized by a wider range of stakeholder groups or in multiple contexts.
On one hand, because public attention is a scarce resource (Hilgartner & Bosk,
1988), anything that captures attention increases the symbolic value of s target. If a
targeted organization has a favorable reputation, the potential for a compelling, dramatic
conflict increases, thereby enhancing its symbolic value. However, because the reactions
of other actors depend on both political considerations and schadenfreude (e.g., Pozner,
2008; Wiesenfeld et al., 2008), a favorable reputation may also help to protect the firm.
As Feather and Sherman (2002) found, schadenfreude, or pleasure at another’s
misfortune, is based on resentment about an actor’s undeserved favorable outcomes, and
hence a desire to correct the injustice. If an organization has a favorable reputation, other
actors may believe that the deviant label has been unjustly applied, and thus refrain from
acting against the organization. If the organization is already viewed in an unfavorable
light, however, observers may naturally conclude that any misfortune that befalls the
organization is justified and that it deserves sanctioning (e.g., Feather & Sherman, 2002),
thereby, increasing piling on behavior (Wiesenfeld et al., 2008).
Stigma and Reputational Loss
Once an organization is stigmatized, its uniqueness is stripped away in the eyes of
its stakeholders (Link & Phelan, 2001). In order to reconcile prior beliefs about a newly
stigmatized firm, members of the stigmatizing stakeholder group are likely to reinterpret
the target organization’s characteristics and actions that were heretofore evaluated
positively (Ducharme & Fine, 1995). Reinterpreting occurs when stakeholders attribute
positive outcomes to external causes, negative outcomes to internal causes, and generally
impute nefarious motives and structures to the organization (e.g., Devers et al., 2009).
During this process, the organization is, thereby, transformed into an entity that is seen as
“fully, intensely, and quintessentially evil” (Ducharme & Fine, 1995: 1311). For
example, strong performance of a stigmatized firm might be recast as resulting from blind
luck or unethical activities (e.g., Mishina et al., 2010), and corporate social responsibility
behaviors may be viewed as instrumental attempts at ingratiation (e.g., Godfrey, 2005).
Although this implies that the stigmatizing stakeholder group is likely to view the
target in a very unfavorable light, this may be more or less catastrophic for the firm—the
degree of reputational damage would depend on the relative importance of the
stigmatizing stakeholder group in the overall calculus that is used to determine the “net
assessments across constituents” (Fombrun, 1996: 396). Hence, if the stigmatizing group
is both few in number and relative influence, the stigmatized firm may suffer only minor
reputational loss, but if the stigmatizing group is influential and/or numerous relative to
other constituents, a stigma may cause severe reputational damage.
Contemporary, Debates and New Directions: A Future Research Agenda
A number of debates currently exist within both the reputation and organizational
stigma literatures. Two primary debates within the reputation literature are how the
reputation construct should be defined and whether an organization has one reputation or
many. For stigma, the debates concern the role of legitimacy, the range of audiences, and
the notion of multiple types of stigma.
Reputation
The first debate, how reputation should be defined, has been explored by
numerous scholars (e.g., Barnett et al., 2006; Berens & van Riel, 2004; Brown et al.,
2006; Fombrun & van Riel, 1997), but has never been fully resolved. As these authors
have pointed out, the main culprit behind the proliferation of different definitions is the
fact that reputation research occurs in many different disciplines. Berens and van Riel
(2004), for example, identify three separate conceptual streams that offer three
conceptualizations of reputation: reputation as a social expectation, reputation as
corporate personality, and reputation as trust. They do not suggest that these differences
can necessarily be reconciled and instead suggest that researchers base their
conceptualizations on “theoretical and practical considerations” (p. 175). Barnett and
colleagues (2006), on the other hand, distinguish between portrayals of reputation as
awareness or representation, assessment or judgment, and economic asset. Arguing that it
is impossible to reconcile the three streams, per se, they propose that scholars use the
term reputation in reference to judgments and advocate a definition of reputation as,
“Observers’ collective judgments of a corporation based on assessments of the financial,
social, and environmental impacts attributed to the corporation over time.” (p. 34).
Barnett and colleagues (2006) definition is thus very similar to Fombrun’s (1996;
Fombrun & Shanley, 1990) definition of reputation, which, as we noted earlier, is
commonly used within the organizational literature.
The second debate within the reputation literature concerns whether reputations
reflect a single, cross-stakeholder evaluation of an organization (e.g., Fombrun, 1996;
Fombrun & Shanley, 1990) or if an organization has a different reputation with respect to
each stakeholder group (e.g., Carter & Deephouse, 1999; Rindova et al., 2005). Many
reputation scholars appear to believe that different stakeholders may hold very different
views of a particular organization. Some empirical evidence suggests that stakeholder-
specific reputations are important predictors of organizational outcomes (e.g., Ganesan,
1994; Rindova et al., 2005). Consequently, some have suggested that scholars
conceptualize and examine reputation as specific to a stakeholder group (e.g., Carter &
Deephouse, 1999; Rindova et al., 2005).
Others, however, argue that, although different stakeholders may have different
views, it is still more meaningful to examine reputation across all stakeholders (Fombrun,
1996; Fombrun & Shanley, 1990). Fortune’s Most Admired Company list has most often
been used to capture this type of reputation and has been found to impact both sustained
financial performance (e.g., Roberts & Dowling, 2002) and earnings surprises (e.g.,
Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rindova, 2010). Unfortunately, as Fombrun (1996) notes, the Fortune
measure does not adequately capture all constituents’ perceptions because it is based only
on the views of “senior executives, directors, and analysts” (p. 397). The Fortune
measure has also been criticized as reflecting only financial performance and, thus, not
multidimensional (e.g., Brown & Perry, 1994; Fryxell & Wang, 1994).
To advance the reputation literature, we suggest scholars attempt to build
consensus around one or two common definitions of reputation (e.g., Barnett et al., 2006;
Fombrun & van Riel, 1997). We also urge scholars to focus on identifying and validating
reputation measures capable of adequately capturing the complexities of the construct4.
Unless scholars can identify measures that are both multidimensional (c.f., Brown &
Perry, 1994; Fryzell & Wang, 1994) and capture the evaluations of the entire range of a
firm’s constituents (e.g., Fombrun, 1996), the debate regarding whether reputations
should be stakeholder-specific or aggregated across stakeholders cannot be resolved.
Organizational Stigma
Due to the paucity of research, a number of debates exist within the emerging
literature on organizational stigma. The first concerns the relationship between stigma
and legitimacy/illegitimacy. Some have suggested that an organizational stigma
represents the “farther end of the spectrum of illegitimacy—the result of contestation that
leads important social audiences to a negative evaluation of the organization,” or
“negative legitimacy” (Hudson, 2008: 255). Although Hudson appeared to be equating
stigma with illegitimacy for illustrative purposes5, we caution that such a comparison
4 Recently, Rindova, Petkova, and Kotha (2007) have suggested that reputation has multiple components, prominence, evaluative favorability, strategic content, and exemplar status, thereby adding additional complexity to the reputation construct. 5 Hudson criticizes the illegitimacy construct as “poorly defined, inconsistently operationalized, and genuinely overbroad in usage,” thus suffering from, “1) the lack of a consistent definition or operationalization and 2) a confounded definition.” (Hudson, 2008:252).
may lead those who are not sufficiently familiar with both sets of literatures to incorrectly
assume that stigma and illegitimacy refer to the same construct.
We believe that the main reason for any potential confusion between the
constructs is that illegitimacy has rarely been defined explicitly. Instead, illegitimacy is
generally implicitly defined as the lack or absence of legitimacy (e.g., Deephouse &
Kaplan & Xiu, 2000; Kitsuse, 1980). Whether and how these processes might play out
for organizational stigmas is an open question, however. Thus, exploring these processes
may offer greater understanding of the unanticipated consequences of reputations and
stigmas.
Finally, we believe that scholars may find value in considering positively deviant
organizations. Although the stigma literature provides insight on the causes and
consequences of negative deviance, some stigma researchers have noted that “[p]eople
may… mark others in favorable, nonstigmatizing ways.” and that it is possible for certain
people to be marked with “medals and awards, indicating that the individual is to be
respected and adulated.” (Neuberg, Smith, & Asher, 2000: 31). In essence, these authors
suggest that there may be a positive counterpart to a stigma, what one might think of as a
“mark of distinction” that serves as an aspirational ideal to the “normals.” To our
knowledge, this notion of a “mark of distinction” has not yet been examined in the stigma
or related literatures. The existing stigma literature applies to the presence or absence of
deviant behavior that is viewed negatively (e.g., Goffman, 1963), and the neoinstitutional
literature examines the presence or absence of conformity to accepted norms, values, and
definitions (e.g., DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). The relatively new
concept of firm celebrity comes closest to this notion of positive deviance, since celebrity
is about deviations from the norm (over- or under-conformance) and a positive evaluation
of that deviance (Rindova, Pollock, & Hayward, 2006). However, Rindova and
colleagues (2006) are careful to point out that the same deviance that the celebrity firm
engages in might be viewed as problematic for any other actor—the celebrity is viewed
as not subject to the ordinary rules and constraints that others face. Consequently, it may
be worthwhile to consider whether a mark of distinction is even possible, and if so, what
the antecedents and consequences of such a mark might be.
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