OTT0010.1177/2631787720975192Organization TheoryRoulet and Pichler 975192research-article2020 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Apollo Theory Article Organization Theory Volume 1: 1–30 Blame Game Theory: © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Scapegoating, Whistleblowing DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2631787720975192 10.1177/2631787720975192 and Discursive Struggles journals.sagepub.com/home/ott following Accusations of Organizational Misconduct Thomas J. Roulet and Rasmus Pichler Abstract Research on organizational misconduct has examined how audiences generate discourses to make sense of behaviour that may transgress the line between right and wrong. However, when organizations are accused of misconduct, the resulting ambiguity also opens opportunities for organizations and their members to generate discourses aimed at deflecting blame. Little is known about how actors who are at risk of being held responsible actively respond to misconduct accusations by engaging in discursive strategies. To address this question, we build on crisis communication and discourse theory to integrate processes of scapegoating and whistleblowing into a holistic model. We develop a blame game theory – conceptualizing the sequence of discursive strategies employed by an organization and its members to strategically shift blame by attributing responsibility to others or denying misconduct. Our model identifies four blame game pathways as a function of two types of ambiguity: moral ambiguity and attributional ambiguity. We highlight accusations of misconduct as pivotal triggering events in the social construction of misconduct. By conceptualizing the discursive dynamics of strategic reactions to accusations of misconduct, our blame game theory contributes to the literature on organizational misconduct and has implications for research on social evaluations. Keywords blame game, crisis, discourse theory, misconduct, scapegoating, whistleblowing University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Corresponding author: Thomas J. Roulet, University of Cambridge, Trumpington St, Cambridge, CB2 1TN, UK. Email: [email protected] Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 Organization Theory A man may fail many times but he isn’t a ways, and this ambiguity makes it difficult for failure until he begins to blame external audiences to evaluate the accusation somebody else. (Faulkner, 2011). The accused organization therefore has both the incentive and opportunity Jean-Paul Getty (1892–1976), American petrol to try to influence audiences’ evaluation of the tycoon and industrialist situation. In other words, the ambiguity of the situation creates the potential for a strategic An extensive body of research has looked at response by the accused actor. It is important to organizational misconduct – ‘a behavior in or take this potential into account to advance our by an organization [that is judged] to transgress understanding of how the social construction of a line separating right from wrong’ (Greve, misconduct unfolds following an accusation. Palmer, & Pozner, 2010, p. 56). As the line To account for the potential of strategic between right and wrong is blurry and can be responses by actors accused of misconduct, we manipulated, misconduct can be considered to suggest adopting a discursive perspective of mis- be socially constructed (Palmer, 2012). A criti- conduct. Because ‘morality originates from and cal point in this social construction is when an is situated in every day discourse’ (Shadnam & organization is accused of misconduct. When Lawrence, 2011, p. 384), we see discourse as such an accusation is made, it is still to be deter- central to the process of the social construction mined whether misconduct really took place of misconduct. Audiences collectively construct and, if so, who was responsible (Faulkner, misconduct through discourses (Clemente & 2011). The organization’s behaviour is subse- Gabbioneta, 2017). Misconduct is constructed quently evaluated by external audiences – when audiences generate discourses that desig- groups of actors who actively try to make sense nate a behaviour as crossing the line between of a situation (Radoynovska & King, 2019; right and wrong, and consequently as condemn- Roulet, 2020) – and judgements are made about able (Roulet, 2020). After an accusation of its wrongfulness (Mohliver, 2019; Palmer, organizational misconduct has been made – for 2013). This audience evaluation is therefore example, through the media pointing out a trans- often associated with negative outcomes such gression (Palmer, Greenwood, & Smith-Crowe, as a reputational penalty for the accused organi- 2016; Roulet & Clemente, 2018) – there is the zation (Coombs & Holladay, 2006). opportunity for such discourses to emerge (Adut, To date, however, the literature on misconduct 2005). In addition to evaluating whether the has neglected the role of accusations in the social behaviour crossed the line between right and construction of misconduct, even though accusa- wrong – thereby constructing its moral status – tions are pivotal triggering events that expose this these discourses also determine who should be social construction (see Palmer, 2014). We there- held accountable for the misbehaviour and thus fore know little about how the dynamics that attribute responsibility (Allport, 1979). The iden- unfold following an accusation of misconduct tification of responsible parties relies on dis- contribute to the social construction of miscon- courses because of ambiguity in the attributional duct and, in particular, about how the accused process (Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015): external organization itself responds to allegations of mis- and internal audiences can both only make more conduct and influences its social construction. At or less plausible inferences about who is respon- the same time, the nature of the situation follow- sible for misconduct (Johansen, Aggerholm, & ing an accusation of misconduct makes it highly Frandsen, 2012). Therefore, both the moral eval- likely that the accused organization will respond uation of the scrutinized behaviour and the attri- strategically and influence the social construction bution of responsibility for that behaviour will of misconduct (Butler, Serra, & Spagnolo, 2020). originate from discourses that emerge following Accusations of misconduct are highly ambig- the accusation. This characteristic in turn enables uous in that they can be interpreted in multiple the accused actors to produce their own Roulet and Pichler 3 discourses with the aim of influencing the social Longueval, 2020) and whistleblowing (Kenny, construction of misconduct by audiences. 2019). We integrate both into the notion of a We therefore turn our focus to the discursive blame game, seeing them as two sides of the reactions of the accused organization and its same coin, as essentially blame-shifting discur- members following an accusation of misconduct. sive strategies through which organizations and As the ambiguity inherent in such accusations their members react to accusations of miscon- opens space for discursive reactions, organiza- duct. Coombs (2007a) identifies scapegoating as tions at risk of being held responsible commonly one of the primary organizational reactions: that generate discourses that attribute responsibility to is, blaming actors who are not necessarily others in order to avoid reputational penalties responsible for a negative outcome but whom the from being caught misbehaving (Coombs, organization can condemn to deflect blame away 2007a). Unfolding crises can also trigger blaming from itself (Boeker, 1992; Grint, 2010). For processes between organizational members when example, organizations can denounce so-called organizations are held responsible for misconduct ‘rogue’ employees. One example of scapegoat- (Gabriel, 2012; Gephart, 1993). This is because it ing is the case of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, is not just organizations that suffer a significant who was held responsible for a €4.9 billion trad- reputation penalty when they are seen to be ing loss for Société Générale, one of the major responsible for misconduct (Coombs & Holladay, European banks, in 2007 and 2008. The bank 2006), but individual members can also suffer was facing a €7 billion loss and many other con- adverse outcomes, even after disassociating troversies related to its involvement in the sub- themselves from the tainted organization (Pozner prime markets and its practices. The top & Harris, 2016; Wiesenfeld, Wurthmann, & management asked employees to stand together Hambrick, 2008). This context – in which both with them against the scapegoat. In this sense, the accused organization and its members are at scapegoating is a collective strategy for shifting risk of being blamed – is characterized by differ- blame from the focal collective actor to an indi- ent types of ambiguity: ambiguity regarding the vidual one through the creation of relevant attribution of responsibility (Crocker, Voelkl, discourses. Testa, & Major, 1991) and ambiguity regarding Individuals