Time: 1:00 - 2:00pm Venue: FB4.04/4.08 (Lunch from 12.30pm in the kitchen)
Miriam Meuthel, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany
Corporate scapegoating tactics – How do companies intentionally shift attributions of responsibility for wrongdoing to scapegoat targets?
When corporate wrongdoing culminates in corporate scandal, some companies choose corporate scapegoating as a corporate defence mechanism against negative public perception (Weaver, Treviño, & Cochran, 1999).
Scapegoating is an intentional behavioural pattern used by corporations to divert responsibility ascriptions (Wilson, 1993) and thus an attempt to "falsify correct responsibility ascriptions" (Wilson, 1993, p. 779).
In this seminar I will point to different corporate scapegoating mechanisms and explain how scapegoat targets can defend themselves against unfair attributions of responsibility for wrongdoing.
See the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management website for more information.