Abstract
You're Taking the Fall: How top managers use external scapegoats to counter legitimacy threats
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol.2012(1), p.12988
07/2012
DOI: 10.5465/AMBPP.2012.12988abstract
Abstract
Abstract only
Scapegoating has a long, but sparsely populated, history of study in organization theory. Those works that have studied scapegoating have only examined cases in which internal scapegoats were chosen to take the blame for organizational failures, and these scapegoats were usually executives. We extend this area of research by examining the use of external scapegoats to counter legitimacy threats that might otherwise imperil the employment of firm executives. Using a sample of public company financial restatements from 2005 to 2010, we test what factors impact the scapegoating of external auditing firms, and whether such scapegoating reduces the hazard that CEOs and CFOs will exit their firms. Our results indicate that scapegoating is more likely when the magnitude of the restatement and the prestige of the auditor are low. Also, as expected, scapegoating reduces the hazard of firm exit for both CEOs and CFOs, the executives most closely linked to financial statements. In addition, scapegoating is more effective for CEOs when they do not simultaneously serve as their board’s Chairman.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- You're Taking the Fall: How top managers use external scapegoats to counter legitimacy threats
- Creators
- Matthew Semadeni - Indiana U. Kelley SchoolRyan Adam Krause - Indiana U. Kelley School
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Publication Details
- Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol.2012(1), p.12988
- DOI
- 10.5465/AMBPP.2012.12988abstract
- eISSN
- 2151-6561
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/2012
- Academic Unit
- Management and Entrepreneurship
- Record Identifier
- 9984937783202771
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