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Media scandals as routine : The construction of corporate moral order
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2457-6448
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE).
2016 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Over the years we have witnessed an increased scrutiny of corporate responsibilities and evaluations of the morality of organizations and leaders as a part of the construction of a moral order. In this paper, we understand the on-going moralization of organizational behaviour from the perspective of media scandals. Whereas media scandals often are both understood and studied as single events, research has also emphasised the interrelated nature of scandals. We build on previous studies and develop insights on how news media scandals can take a repetitive form over time, and elaborate on what role media scandals about corporate behaviour play in challenging the moral order and shaping social norms about what it means to be a responsible organization. Empirically, the paper builds on a content analysis of “news media scandals” – when H&M, a large Swedish textile company, recurrently was accused for misconduct and irresponsible behaviour – over a period of 18 years, from 1995 to 2012. One key conclusion is that even though both the logic of media and the character of a scandal suggest some kind of novelty and norm breaking aspect, the dynamics of the media scandal of H&M indicate that the trajectory of the scandals is rather repetitive and even routinized. The routinized media scandal leads to a one-dimensional media image of H&M as a moral actor. Instead of reflecting different views on complex moral or responsibility issues – the media texts rather confirm and strengthen previous media narratives of H&M. The findings also raise questions about the immediate and long-term consequences of a routinized media scandal. When a media scandal becomes routinized, we can expect it to influence the dynamics of the legitimizing and delegitimizing of the organizational behaviour.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2016.
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-136573OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-136573DiVA, id: diva2:1055409
Conference
32nd EGOS Colloquium: Organizing in the Shadow of Power, Naples, Italy, July 7–9, 2016
Projects
Medierna som moralisk domstol
Funder
The Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius FoundationAvailable from: 2016-12-12 Created: 2016-12-12 Last updated: 2022-02-28Bibliographically approved

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Grafström, MariaWindell, Karolina

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
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  • en-US
  • fi-FI
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  • nn-NB
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More languages
Output format
  • html
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  • asciidoc
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