ON THE FORGETTING OF CORPORATE IRRESPONSIBILITY

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mena, Sebastien; Rintamaki, Jukka; Fleming, Peter; Spicer, Andre
• 署名单位: City St Georges, University of London; Aalto University; City St Georges, University of London; City St Georges, University of London; City St Georges, University of London
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0363-7425
• DOI: 10.5465/amr.2014.0208
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 720-738
• 关键词: IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT; collective memory; ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY; SOCIAL-RESPONSIBILITY; Issue salience; HISTORY; media; legitimacy; strategies; MOVEMENT

摘要

Why are some serious cases of corporate irresponsibility collectively forgotten? Drawing on social memory studies, we examine how this collective forgetting process can occur. We propose that a major instance of corporate irresponsibility leads to the emergence of a stakeholder mnemonic community that shares a common recollection of the past incident. This community generates and then draws on mnemonic traces to sustain a collective memory of the past event over time. In addition to the natural entropic tendency to forget, collective memory is also undermined by instrumental forgetting work, which we conceptualize in this article. Forgetting work involves manipulating short-term conditions of the event, silencing vocal rememberers, and undermining collective mnemonic traces that sustain a version of the past. This process can result in a reconfigured collective memory and collective forgetting of corporate irresponsibility events. Collective forgetting can have positive and negative consequences for the firm, stakeholders, and society.