Sanne Frandsen
Assistant head Organization, Department of Business Administration
Behind the Stigma Shield : Frontline Employees’ Emotional Response to Organizational Event Stigma at Work and at Home
Author
Summary, in English
We investigate how frontline employees manage their emotional experiences of organizational event stigma as an implication of organizational wrongdoing. Our research is based on a longitudinal case study of Danske Bank, which was involved in a money laundering scandal of historical magnitude. We evoke Goffman’s epistemological understanding of stigma as arising in social interactions in all aspects of life. We analyse the emotionally straining spill-over effects of stigmatization at home, as event stigma blurs individuals’ work–home boundaries. Our study shows how frontline employees develop a ‘stigma shield’, that is, emotional detachment strategies used at work and at home to protect against the negative implications of event stigmatization and maintain their organizational pride and loyalty. Interestingly, we find that the stigma shield enables identity protection rather than identity restructuring in response to the identity threat posed by the scandal. We contribute to the literature on organizational event stigma and identity threat by offering a theoretical lens focusing on individual-level emotional responses to ‘felt’ stigmatization among frontline employees in an organization facing scandal.
Department/s
- Department of Business Administration
- Organizational Studies
Publishing year
2022
Language
English
Pages
1987-2023
Publication/Series
Journal of Management Studies
Volume
59
Issue
8
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Topic
- Business Administration
Keywords
- at work/at home
- emotional responses
- event stigma
- frontline employees
- identity threat
- organizational stigma
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0022-2380