Scapegoating: how organizations assign blame
- Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2023
- viii, 249 p.
Table of content: Introduction 1. Forms and types of scapegoat 2. The scapegoat as an instrument of organizational rationality 3. Corporate scapegoating: the Costa Concordia accident 4. How to spot organizational scapegoats 5. Organization and law: inquiry logics and policies of blame Conclusions
A large cruise ship sinks after hitting some outcropping rocks near the shore. Who is to blame? In the face of negative events – accidents, corporate scandals, crises and bankruptcies – there are two organizational strategies for managing blame. The first is to take full responsibility for the event and to implement adequate corrective measures. The second is to create one or more scapegoats by transferring blame to some of the people directly involved in the event. In this way, the organization can appear blameless and avoid costly remedial interventions. Reappraising the Costa Concordia shipwreck and other well-known cases, Catino analyzes the processes and mechanisms behind creating the 'organizational scapegoat.' In doing so, Catino highlights the limits of explanations centered on guilt and individual solutions to organizational problems, and underlines the need for a different civic epistemology.
Introduces the novel concept of the 'organizational scapegoat' Reappraises famous incidents, including the Costa Concordia shipwreck Shows how organizational scapegoating encourages inertia, rather than learning and change