Organizations often face negative perceptions from stakeholders that can profoundly shape their operations, reputation, and long-term viability. This special issue explores the emergence, processes, and outcomes of organizational stigma, providing insights into how organizations are labelled, discredited, and sometimes devalued by audiences. The articles examine stigma across multiple levels – from individual employees to entire industries – and consider its antecedents, including misconduct, deviance, or industry-specific characteristics. By combining empirical studies and conceptual analyses, the issue sheds light on how stigma affects organizational identity, stakeholder relationships, and strategic decision-making, while also highlighting contexts where stigma can be managed or even leveraged.
Beyond the negative consequences, this issue also investigates how organizations respond to and navigate stigma. Studies focus on strategies of stigma management, the transfer of stigma to other actors, and the dynamics of employee experiences within stigmatized contexts. By addressing multilevel and cross-level processes, the research provides actionable insights for managers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers on mitigating risks, protecting organizational legitimacy, and harnessing potential opportunities in stigmatized environments.
Read the full issue here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14676486/2022/59/8 or browse the individual articles below.
Organizational Stigma: Taking Stock and Opening New Areas for Research by Bryant Ashley Hudson, Karen D. W. Patterson, Thomas J. Roulet, Wesley S. Helms and Kimberly Elsbach
Straight OUTTA Detroit: Embracing Stigma as Part of the Entrepreneurial Narrative by Birton J. Cowden, Joshua S. Bendickson, Blake D. Mathias and Shelby J. Solomon
‘We’re all Born Naked and the Rest is Drag’: Spectacularization of Core Stigma in RuPaul’s Drag Race by Mario Campana, Katherine Duffy and Maria Rita Micheli
Behind the Stigma Shield: Frontline Employees’ Emotional Response to Organizational Event Stigma at Work and at Home by Sanne Frandsen and Mette Morsing
Shame On You! Unpacking the Individual and Organizational Implications of Engaging with a Stigmatized Organization by Gro Kvåle and Zuzana Murdoch
Not on Skid Row: Stigma Management in Addiction Treatment Organizations by Elizabeth Goodrick, Jennifer Ling Bagdasarian and Lee C. Jarvis
Double Trouble: Containing Public Disapproval Arising from an Interplay of Stigmatized Categories by Lai Si Tsui-Auch, Dongdong Huang, Jun Jie Yang and Si Zheng Koh
Nevertheless, They Persisted: How Patterns of Opposition and Support Shaped the Survival of U.S. Abortion Clinics by Alessandro Piazza and Grace L. Augustine
Stigma as Moral Insurance: How Stigma Buffers Firms from the Market Consequences of Greenwashing by George I. Kassinis, Adam A. Kay, Giorgos Papagiannakis and Pavlos A. Vlachos
List of Reviewers for this Special Issue
