When Audiences and Targets Collide: Towards a Relational View of Stigma in and Around Organizations

Abstract

In recent years, organizational and management scholars have taken a strong interest in the study of negative social evaluations, with a particular focus on stigma that occurs in and around organizations. To date, research in this context has focused on two overarching themes: First, it has examined how the targets of stigma respond to the pressures of social audiences by, for example, attempting to reduce their stigmatization. Second, it has investigated the flipside, namely how audiences decide to and then proceed to stigmatize and sanction targets in the first place. However, in both cases the literature to date has not examined in detail how targets’ or audiences’ interactions and crucially their relationships with one another may shape the process of stigmatization as well as responses to it. Thus, we know little about the drivers and motivations of specific actions and how, in particular, these are influenced by existing relationships between audiences and targets in the context of stigma. The present dissertation addresses this by building a more relational view of stigma in and around organizations. It does so through three studies in different contexts: the first study analyzes how organizations struck by scandal and stigma spillover navigate stigmatization and sanctions from multiple, powerful stakeholders and how their historical relationships influence their actions. The second study, located in the context of an organization that supports ex-offenders back into employment shows how relationships between staff and ex-offenders that may be established with the best of intentions can, over time, challenge and shape interactions between both groups of actors and lead to difficulties. Finally, in the third study, I theorize how organizations, through their members, can form relationships with stigmatized groups and how organizational members’ backgrounds and experiences play into this.