Scapegoating and Firm Reputation

Reputation from Nested Activities: The Inefficient Effects of Scapegoating

——————————————————————————————————Scapegoating is often said to be a source of inefficiency in organizations. In this paper, I analyze the consequences of scapegoating within a firm in amodel where reputation concerns drive the actions of superiors. Consider delegation choices, for example. Hiring efficient workers may be a good idea if successful production is the only way to build reputation....

Firm Reputation and Horizontal Integration∗

We study effects of horizontal integration on firm reputation. In an environment where customers observe only imperfect signals about firms’ effort/quality choices, firms cannot maintain reputations of high quality and earn quality premia forever. Even when firms are choosing high quality/effort, there is always a possibility that a bad signal is observed. In this case, firms must give up their...

Firm reputation and applicant pool characteristics

Scholars have suggested that a firm’s reputation can provide it with a competitive advantage by attracting more, and possibly higher-caliber, applicants. No research has actually investigated this relationship, however, in large part because researchers have not assessed applicant pool characteristics but instead have measured applicants’ intentions. Therefore, we conducted two studies to inves...

Dont ask why things went wrong Nested Reputation and Scapegoating Ine¢ ciencyy

Scapegoating is a source of ine¢ ciency in organizations. This is a commonly held view. But despite its commonality and its use as a justi…cation for reforms designed to reduce scapegoating, no formal model has been developed to explain why and when this is the case. We propose an explanation by focusing on how superiors make decisions inside an organization when they only care about reputation...

Scapegoating and Leader Behavior