Stigma and Its Intersections

The goal of this symposium is to further unpack the concept of stigma in relation to other types of social evaluation in the context of organizations and professions. Stigmatized actors are labeled by salient audiences as having a fundamental, deep-seated flaw (Devers, et al., 2009). This stigma discredits the actors, discouraging others from engaging with it. By discouraging engagement with the organization, the stigmatizing audience is able to exert social control over the stigmatized actor. Stigma is one of only a few negative social evaluations that have been examined in the management literature, and there is significant work to be done to both disentangle it from other evaluations and to build conceptual clarity around the intersections among various social evaluations. More specifically, we aim to make a first step towards understanding the differences and connections among the concepts of stigma, status, legitimacy, and reputation. Stigma and Status Hierarchies: Micro-Occupational Communities in t...