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ABSTRACT 
 
 
Organizational researchers are increasingly interested in the role of social 
approval assets, such as reputation and celebrity, for financial success of organizations. In 
this three-essay dissertation I examine the role of these assets when an organization is 
involved in negative disruptive events. 
In Essay 1, I introduce four media generated organizational types: celebrity, 
infamous, peripheral, and unfamiliar organizations and develop a theoretical framework 
and propositions that examine how stakeholder decisions whether or not to transact with an 
organization after disruptions depend on the type of organization under examination. 
Title of Dissertation: THE BENEFITS AND BURDENS OF HIGH 
REPUTATION DURING DISRUPTIONS:  
THE ROLE OF MEDIA REPUTATION, 
ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION, 
AND DISRUPTION TYPE 
  
 Anastasiya Zavyalova, Doctor of Philosophy, 
2012 
  
Directed By: Professor Rhonda K. Reger 
Department of Management & Organization 
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 In Essay 2, I argue theoretically and find empirically that stakeholder reactions to 
disruptions depend on the level of organizational identification. On a sample of on-campus 
murders in U.S. colleges and universities in 2001-2009, I find that universities receive 
fewer applications after murders, and this effect is stronger for ranked universities. 
Additionally, percentage of alumni donating to schools increases after on-campus murders, 
but only in ranked universities. I test the robustness of these findings using different 
operationalizations of disruptions and stakeholder groups. The results indicate that 
reputation is a liability during disruptions when stakeholders under examination have low 
levels of organizational identification and reputation is a buffer for reactions by high-
 identification stakeholders.  
In Essay 3, I argue that the amplifying role of organizational reputation is due to 
differences in news coverage of disruptions in high-reputation compared to low-reputation 
organizations. The results of empirical analysis of news coverage of 106 on-campus 
murders indicate that even after controlling for the characteristics of the event, disruptions 
in high-reputation organizations receive more coverage. I further examine this finding 
using content analysis of articles that covered four pairs of similar murders that took place 
in ranked vs. non-ranked universities. I find that not only do disruptions in high-reputation 
organizations receive more news coverage, but the coverage is more in-depth and the name 
of a high-reputation organization is more likely to appear in the article title.  
Taken together, the findings advance research on the role of media reputation, 
reputation, and organizational identification for organizations experiencing negative 
disruptions.   
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THE BENEFITS AND BURDENS OF HIGH REPUTATION DURING 
DISRUPTIONS:  THE ROLE OF MEDIA REPUTATION, ORGANIZATIONAL 
IDENTIFICATION, AND DISRUPTION TYPE 
 
By 
Anastasiya Zavyalova 
 
 
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the  
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment 
of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy 
2012 
 
 
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Advisory Committee: 
 
Professor Rhonda K. Reger, Chair 
Professor David A. Kirsch 
Professor Michael D. Pfarrer 
Professor Violina P. Rindova 
Professor David M. Waguespack 
Professor Linda Steiner 
 
 
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 ? Copyright by 
Anastasiya Zavyalova 
2012 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Dedication 
for my Mom 
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 Acknowledgements 
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 I will always be grateful to all those, mentioned and not mentioned here, who made 
this accomplishment possible. Particularly: my dissertation committee?Rhonda Reger, 
David Kirsch, Michael Pfarrer, Violina Rindova, Linda Steiner, and David Waguespack?
 and the faculty at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, Department of Management and 
Organization, for their belief in the soundness of my ideas; David Waguespack for taking a 
chance on me and admitting me to the program; my cohort, Wei ?Vivian? Guo and Qiang 
?John? Li, for the collective decision not to give up in our first year; current and former PhD 
students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business?Dave Anderson, Scott Benjamin, Seth 
Carnahan, Kris Deininger, Shweta Gaonkar, Brad Greenwood, Azi Gera, Byungchae Jin, 
Lori Kiyatkin, David Major, Daniel Malter, Ted Matherly, Mahka Moeen, Dan Olson, Bryan 
Stroube, and Robert Vesco for providing feedback on my work and for being my social 
support; my academic mentor, Mike Pfarrer, for his gift to make any problem seem solvable; 
my advisor, Rhonda Reger, for her ability to provide intellectual freedom yet give a sense of 
direction and moral support throughout the good and the difficult times in the PhD program; 
my American family, Greg and Doris Light, for always believing in me and making me feel 
like family; my friend, Olga Knyazeva, for making me laugh during the times when it 
seemed impossible; my sisters, Sveta and Nadya, for tireless skype conversations and making 
me feel that I was back home when I needed it the most; and, above all, my Mom, whose 
love, strength of character, and moral compass will always be my inspiration. To all of you 
and many others I am eternally grateful. 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii 
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii 
LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................. vi 
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii 
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... 1 
CHAPTER 2: ESSAY 1 ..................................................................................................... 6 
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNKNOWN: THE ROLE OF MEDIA 
REPUTATION DURING DISRUPTIONS........................................................................ 6 
Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 6 
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.............................................................................. 12 
What Makes the News? ............................................................................................ 12 
News Coverage and Social Perceptions.................................................................... 15 
Media Reputation and Social Approval........................................................................ 17 
DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS ......................................... 21 
Celebrity Organizations ............................................................................................ 24 
Infamous Organizations ............................................................................................ 25 
Peripheral Organizations........................................................................................... 25 
Unfamiliar Organizations.......................................................................................... 26 
STAKEHOLDER REACTIONS TO ORGANIZATIONAL DISRUPTIONS............ 27 
Disruptions in Celebrity Organizations .................................................................... 30 
Disruptions in Infamous Organizations .................................................................... 31 
Disruptions in Peripheral Organizations................................................................... 32 
Disruptions in Unfamiliar Organizations.................................................................. 33 
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 35 
Theoretical Contributions ......................................................................................... 35 
Directions for Future Research ................................................................................. 37 
CHAPTER 3: ESSAY 2 ................................................................................................... 40 
THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION AND REPUTATION 
FOLLOWING DISRUPTIONS........................................................................................ 40 
Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 40 
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES .................................................................................. 44 
The Role of Organizational Reputation in Light of Disruptions .............................. 44 
Organizational Identification .................................................................................... 47 
DATA AND METHODS ............................................................................................. 55 
Sample Construction................................................................................................. 56 
Variables ................................................................................................................... 56 
RESULTS ..................................................................................................................... 60 
ROBUSTNESS  CHECKS ........................................................................................... 63 
Operationalization of Stakeholder Transactions....................................................... 63 
Type of Disruption.................................................................................................... 65 
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 DISCUSSION............................................................................................................... 70 
Contributions to Practice........................................................................................... 71 
Directions for Future Research ................................................................................. 72 
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 75 
CHAPTER 4: ESSAY 3 ................................................................................................... 91 
REPUTATION AND MEDIA COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIVE EVENTS .................... 91 
Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 91 
STUDY 1: AMOUNT OF NEWS COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIONS IN LOW- AND 
HIGH-REPUTATION ORGANIZATIONS ................................................................ 94 
Magnitude of the Disruptive Event........................................................................... 94 
Deviance of the Event............................................................................................... 95 
Organizational Reputation ........................................................................................ 96 
DATA AND METHODS ............................................................................................. 97 
Variables ................................................................................................................... 97 
DATA ANALYSIS..................................................................................................... 100 
Reputation and News Coverage of Disruptions...................................................... 100 
STUDY 2: CONTENT OF NEWS COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIONS IN LOW- AND 
HIGH-REPUTATION ORGANIZATIONS .............................................................. 101 
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................. 105 
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 108 
Theoretical Contributions ........................................................................................... 108 
Directions for Future Research ................................................................................... 111 
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 125 
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 LIST OF TABLES 
ESSAY 2: 
TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics for the Full Sample........................................ 77 
TABLE 2 Correlations for the Full Sample...................................................... 78 
TABLE 3 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to 
Predict Applications, Ranked Universities ....................................................... 79 
TABLE 4 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to 
Predict Applications, Non-Ranked Universities ............................................... 80 
TABLE 5 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to 
Predict Percentage of Donating Alumni, Ranked Universities......................... 81 
TABLE 6 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to 
Predict Percentage of Donating Alumni, Non-Ranked Universities ................ 82 
TABLE 7 Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of 
Applications ...................................................................................................... 83 
TABLE 8 Results of a Fixed-Effects OLS Regression Predicting Percentage of 
Donating Alumni .............................................................................................. 84 
TABLE 9 Results of a Fixed-Effects OLS Regression Predicting Total Alumni 
Giving ............................................................................................................... 85 
TABLE 10 Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number 
of Alumni Donors without a Degree from the University ................................ 86 
TABLE 11 Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number 
of Alumni Donors with a Degree from the University ..................................... 87 
TABLE 12 Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number 
of Alumni Donors without a Degree from the University ................................ 88 
TABLE 13 Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number 
of Alumni Donors with a Degree from the University ..................................... 89 
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 ESSAY 3: 
TABLE 1 Description of On-Campus Murders.............................................. 114 
TABLE 2 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations .......................................... 121 
TABLE 3 Results of a Poisson Regression Predicting Amount of News 
Coverage ......................................................................................................... 122 
TABLE 4 Categories Used to Code Content of Articles about the Selected 
Cases ............................................................................................................... 123 
TABLE 5 Summary of Article Content on the Selected Murder Cases ......... 124 
 
 
 
 
 
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 LIST OF FIGURES 
ESSAY 1: 
FIGURE 1 Typology and Examples of Organizational Disruptions ............ 90 
 
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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 
 Organizational researchers have been increasingly interested in the role of social 
approval assets, such as reputation and celebrity, for the financial success and survival of 
organizations (Deephouse & Suchman, 2008; Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Rao, 1994; 
Rindova, Pollock, & Hayward, 2006). Information intermediaries, such as news media 
and rankings agencies, are among the most influential sources of information that affect 
social approval of an organization and ultimately stakeholders? decision whether to 
purchase its products or services (Deephouse, 2000; Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rindova, 2010; 
Rindova et al., 2006). Ranking highly in such lists as Fortune 500 or America?s Most 
Admired Companies and being covered positively in the news helps organizations 
accumulate social approval among stakeholders, which becomes a valuable asset and a 
source of competitive advantage (Fombrun, 1996; Rindova & Fombrun, 1999).  
 One of the important instances when organizations rely on the accumulated social 
approval among stakeholders is during negative disruptive events, or unexpected events 
with negative financial, physical, or emotional consequences for organizational 
stakeholders (Desai, 2011). However, organizational researchers have only started to 
investigate the role of social approval of organizations for stakeholders? reactions to 
disruptive events. While organizations invest in reputation and impression management, 
we still know little about whether such investments are helpful in overcoming negative 
stakeholder reactions after disruptive events.  
 The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, I aim to develop a theoretical 
framework and propositions that provide insights into the role of media reputation of 
organizations for stakeholder reactions to disruptive events. Second, I provide theoretical 
 
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 arguments and examine empirically that high levels of organizational reputation have 
different connotations for different stakeholder groups. Specifically, the level of 
identification with an organization involved in a disruptive event may alter stakeholder 
interpretations of news coverage about the negative event and result in different 
reactions. Thus, being highly reputable may not help all organizations during disruptions. 
 In Essay 1, a theoretical essay, I develop a typology of four organizational 
archetypes generated through news coverage of organizations?celebrity, infamous, 
peripheral, and unfamiliar organizations?and argue that the amount and tenor (or 
framing of an issue as positive or negative (Pollock & Rindova, 2003) of news coverage 
of organizations affect stakeholder familiarly with the organization and evoke positive or 
negative emotional responses. These evoked emotions, in turn, affect how stakeholders 
interpret the disruptive event and how they ultimately react to it. The core argument of 
the theoretical propositions developed in this essay is that stakeholder reactions to the 
news about disruptive events in an organization depend on stakeholder familiarity with 
the organization and different emotions evoked by the name of the organization. I base 
my propositions on research in mass communications and social psychology and argue 
that under certain conditions, consistent media representation of an organization over 
time may affect people?s perceptions about the organization and that these perceptions 
affect their interpretation of subsequent events in the organization and reactions to them. 
This study extends research on media reputation and celebrity by highlighting underlying 
differences between positive and negative emotions and developing a more nuanced 
typology of organizations based on news media coverage about them. I note, however, 
that stakeholders? interpretations of the disruptive event may not only be a function of 
 
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 prior media reputation, but they may also depend on differences in stakeholders? relation 
to the organization, which I examine in Essay 2. 
In Essay 2, I hypothesize and test empirically how the role of a specific social 
approval asset, organizational reputation, varies with the levels of organizational 
identification among organizational stakeholders in light of disruptive events. I note that 
the findings of recent studies on the role of organizational reputation in light of 
disruptions have been inconsistent: some suggest that high reputation attenuates the 
negative effect of disruptions on stakeholders? decision to transact with the organization, 
while others find that high levels of organizational reputation may be a liability in light of 
disruptions. I argue that one of the reasons for these inconsistencies is assumed 
homogeneity among organizational stakeholders in terms of their relations with the 
organization.  Specifically, I explore how stakeholders? organizational identification 
influences the way they interpret the role of organizational reputation following 
disruptions. I test developed hypotheses in the context of on-campus murders in U.S. 
universities in 2001-2009. The results indicate that disruptions are associated with fewer 
transactions by low-identification stakeholders and only highly reputable organizations 
experience this effect. The findings are opposite for high-identification stakeholders: this 
group increases levels of transactions with highly reputable organizations after 
disruptions. This study provides a promising resolution to the inconsistencies found in 
prior research by suggesting an important variable that affects stakeholders? reactions to 
negative events and extends research on social approval assets by examining the 
differences in the value of intangible assets derived by stakeholders with varying levels 
of organizational identification. 
 
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 In Essay 3, I empirically examine the mechanisms behind the results found in 
Essay 2?that the reason for the buffering and amplifying effects of organizational 
reputation in light of disruptive events is due to increased attention of the news media to 
disruptions in high-reputation organizations. While prior organizational studies have 
provided empirical evidence that media coverage of organizations is consequential for 
organizational outcomes, there have been no empirical investigations focusing on the role 
of organizational reputation for media coverage of disruptions (with an exception of a 
study by Rhee & Haunschild, 2006 where the authors present theoretical arguments for 
such a relationship). The purpose of Essay 3 is to investigate the role of organizational 
reputation for news media?s coverage of disruptions in organizations, above and beyond 
the characteristics of disruptions themselves. I investigate this question on the same 
sample of on-campus murders that took place in U.S. universities in 2001-2009 used in 
Essay 2. First, I conduct a quantitative analysis that examines the role of organizational 
reputation for the amount of coverage of disruptions. The findings indicate that 
disruptions in high-reputation organizations are more likely to be covered, even when 
controlling for the severity and egregiousness of the disruptions. Second, I compare the 
content of news articles of similar murders that took place in high- vs. low-reputation 
universities using four matched pairs of universities. The findings provide further 
evidence that disruptions in high-reputation organizations receive more coverage than 
similar disruptions in organizations that do not possess this asset. Additionally, the names 
of high-reputation organizations are more likely to be mentioned in the title of the article 
and news coverage of disruptions in these organizations consists of more in-depth stories, 
 
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 which provides an additional explanation for the amplifying effect of organizational 
reputation during disruptions.  
Taken together, the three essays investigate the role of social approval assets 
generated through such information intermediaries as news media and ranking agencies. 
Specifically, I provide theoretical arguments to suggest that organizational reputation and 
stakeholder identification interact in more nuanced ways than has been considered in 
organizational theory.  For instance, while prior research has examined the positive 
returns to celebrity organizations during disruptions, the theoretical arguments developed 
here examine other types of news media-generated organizations, and suggest that, in 
some cases, staying away from the media spotlight may be a beneficial strategy. I also 
theoretically argue and find empirical evidence that social approval of organizations and 
high levels of organizational reputation may have a different effect on stakeholders with 
varying levels of organizational identification and being highly reputable may not always 
benefit organizations that experience disruptions. Organizational identification, in turn, 
affects stakeholders? interpretation of and reactions to negative disruptions in 
organizations.  Finally, I find two mechanisms for differential reactions to disruptions in 
high- and low-reputation organizations: the amount and depth of news coverage is higher 
and the name of the organization is more prominent in the news coverage of disruptions 
in high-reputation organizations.   
 
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 CHAPTER 2: ESSAY 1 
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNKNOWN: THE ROLE OF MEDIA 
REPUTATION DURING DISRUPTIONS 
Abstract 
 I examine the effect of media reputation of organizations prior to a disruptive 
event on stakeholders? decision to transact with an organization after the event. The essay 
focuses on the interplay of two aspects of news coverage of organizations: the amount 
and tenor of coverage and their relation to stakeholder familiarity with and emotional 
attitude towards a focal organization prior to disruptions. A description of typology of 
organizational archetypes generated by news media?celebrity, infamous, peripheral, and 
unfamiliar organizations?is followed by propositions that examine how each of the four 
archetypes is affected by disruptions. Relying on research in mass communications, 
social psychology, and organization studies I suggest that being covered by the news 
media is not always beneficial, and during disruptions may negatively affect 
organizations.  
 
 
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  Media reputation?defined as an overall evaluation of the organization presented 
in the media (Deephouse, 2000)?is one of the social approval assets of organizations.  
By disseminating information about organizations news media?printed press, online 
publications, television, and radio?shape public perceptions about organizations and 
ultimately affect their financial success (Deephouse, 2000; Pollock & Rindova, 2003; 
Rao, 1994). After an organization experiences a disruptive event?defined here as 
unexpected event with negative consequences for organizational stakeholders (Desai, 
2011)?stakeholder reactions to the event will partly depend on prior news coverage of 
the organization. However, organizational researchers have only started to investigate the 
role of media reputation of organizations on stakeholders? reactions to disruptive events 
and focused on the role of celebrity organizations?organizations that ?attract a high 
level of public attention and generate positive emotional responses from stakeholder 
audiences? (Rindova et al., 2006: 51). I contribute to research on media reputation by 
developing a typology of four organizational archetypes generated through news 
coverage of organizations?celebrity, infamous, peripheral, and unfamiliar organizations 
?and argue that the amount and tenor (or framing of an issue as positive or negative 
(Pollock & Rindova, 2003) of news coverage of organizations affect stakeholder 
familiarly with the organization, emotional responses associated with the organization, 
and ultimately stakeholder interpretations of and reactions to disruptive events.  
 To develop theoretical propositions presented in this paper, I make a number of 
simplifying assumptions. First, I focus on external organizational stakeholders?
 stakeholders that define organization?s external environment (Atkinson, Waterhouse, & 
Wells, 1997), such as current or potential customers of the product or service, potential 
 
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 employees, or community in which the organization operates. I do not differentiate 
among each stakeholder groups and do not explore the differences in their relations with 
the organization in the theorizing; rather, the essay should be interpreted as focusing on 
any one of the groups of external stakeholders that have similar relations with the 
organization. I also assume that external stakeholders have discretion not to transact with 
a focal organization and can choose to transact with another organization. Second, I do 
not distinguish among the effects of different types of news sources (i.e. radio, television, 
newspapers, or internet) on stakeholder perceptions about the organization. Third, I 
assume that disruptions in organizations are of similar type. Fourth, I hold constant the 
heterogeneity of industries in which organizations operate. I relax each of these 
assumptions and explore possible extensions of developed theoretical propositions in the 
Discussion section of this essay. 
 External organizational stakeholders partly form their perceptions about 
organizations through exposure to information about the organization in various news 
media outlets (Bandura, 2001). By providing information about organizations and their 
actions, news media creates vicarious experiences, or makes available representations of 
experiences of others and the effects those experiences produce (Bandura, 2001). This 
news media-generated reality becomes one of the bases for stakeholders? perceptions 
about and support for organizations and forms media reputation of organizations. Thus, 
news media coverage is consequential for the formation of external stakeholders? 
perceptions about organizations and their future supportive transactions with the 
organization (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990).  
 While some transactions may be negative in their consequences for the 
 
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 organization?s success?boycotts, negative word-of-mouth, decisions not to purchase 
organization?s products or services?the theoretical propositions developed in this essay 
focus around positive and supportive transactions. I define supportive transactions as 
those transactions by organizational stakeholders that positively affect the life of the 
organization. Examples of supportive transactions include purchase of products and 
services, purchase of stock, ?liking? a product in social media, and public defense of an 
organization, and positive word-of-mouth. 
Stakeholders? engagement in supportive transactions with the organization 
decreases if the focal organization faces a disruptive event. Such negative events as 
?industrial disasters, airline crashes, toxic spills, and other catastrophes? (Desai, 2011: 
264) lower social perceptions about the organization. We expect that our food and 
products will not contain hazardous materials, that our schools will be safe to attend, and 
that airplanes will land (Coombs, 2012). Once public, the knowledge about a disruptive 
event violates stakeholders? expectations about appropriate organizational conduct (Scott, 
1995). After stakeholders? expectations are violated by a negative event, their trust is 
betrayed because the social contract between them and the organization has been broken 
(Burgoon & Lepoire, 1993; Morrison & Robinson, 1997; Rindova et al., 2006).  
Recent organizational research suggests that stakeholders? reactions to a 
disruptive event are partly influenced by the emotional responses associated with the 
organization. The evoked emotions, in turn, are affected by the way news media report 
about the organization?the amount and tenor of news media coverage of the 
organization (Deephouse, 2000; Pollock & Rindova, 2003; Rao, 1994; Rindova & 
Fombrun, 1999). For instance, Pfarrer and colleagues find that compared to non-celebrity 
 
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 firms celebrity firms?defined as firms with large amounts of positive news coverage? 
are buffered from negative market reactions following negative earnings surprises 
(Pfarrer et al., 2010). Pfarrer and colleagues, however, looked at stakeholder reactions to 
negative organizational actions in celebrity and high reputation organizations, and did not 
explicitly examine the effect of disruptive events on organizations with varying types of 
media reputation. The question arises: what is the effect of prior media reputation of 
organizations for stakeholder reactions to disruptive events? 
The purpose of this study is to examine the role the media reputation of 
organizations plays for stakeholders? willingness to transact with the organization after a 
negative, disruptive event. The core argument of the theoretical propositions developed in 
this essay is that stakeholder reactions to the news about disruptive events in an 
organization depend on stakeholder familiarity with the organization and different 
emotional responses associated with the name of the organization. I base my propositions 
on two research streams. The first research stream, research in mass communications, 
argues that the news media affect social perceptions about the importance of events. The 
second research stream is in social psychology and decision making, which suggests that 
people?s judgments about an entity are affected by their prior beliefs and attitudes to the 
entity (Lingle & Ostrom, 1979; Loken, 1984 as cited in (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Hastie & 
Dawes, 2001). I develop a typology of organizational characteristics generated by news 
media based on research in social psychology that argues that once people form an 
attitude about an entity, that attitude organizes subsequent judgments (Lingle & Ostrom, 
1979; Loken, 1984 as cited in (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). I further develop theoretical 
propositions on how stakeholders react to disruptions in the four different types of 
 
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 organizations. 
This essay makes two main contributions to extant organizational research. First, I 
contribute to research on media reputation by highlighting the differences between 
positive and negative emotions. These two types of emotions, I argue, generate different 
emotional responses among organizational stakeholders, and thus should be treated as 
two separate types of media coverage. Relying on the interplay between stakeholder 
familiarity with an organization and emotional responses associated with the name of the 
organization, I develop a more nuanced typology of media reputations than simply 
considering organizational celebrity. Second, I contribute to research on organizational 
disruptions by examining how different types of media reputation?celebrity, infamous, 
peripheral, and unfamiliar?alter stakeholders? attention to and interpretation of 
disruptive events. The typology of media reputations provides a lens through which 
future studies can investigate why some organizations may experience more severe 
consequences following disruptive events. 
The development of theoretical arguments proceeds as follows: first, I highlight 
theoretical arguments and empirical findings from mass communications research on 
determinants of newsworthy events and the effects of news media on social perceptions. I 
then summarize organizational studies on media reputation and emphasize how it may 
differ from other social approval assets. I proceed to introduce the typology of media 
reputations, and develop theoretical propositions that explain stakeholder reactions to 
disruptions in organizations of each type. I conclude the essay with discussion of 
contributions of the study, its limitations, and directions for future research. 
 
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 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 
What Makes the News? 
 Not all events, individuals, or organizations are covered by the news media; some 
are deemed more newsworthy than others. Over the last four decades mass 
communications researchers have studied the criteria of ?newsworthy? events and 
characteristics that determine the likelihood that an event will be covered by news media. 
This literature suggests that the likelihood that an event will make it to the news depends 
on the characteristics of the event itself, the context in which the event took place, and the 
influence of the organization or the person involved in the event on news media 
representatives. 
 The mass communications literature on the criteria of newsworthiness suggests 
that seven characteristics of the event itself affect the likelihood of a story to be covered 
by news media (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Katz, 1987; Lee, 2008; McCarthy, McPhail, & 
Smith, 1996; Peterson, 1979). First, prominence of the person, the nation, or the 
organization involved in the story makes it more newsworthy because elite objects are 
well-known and well-recognized by different audiences (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; 
Rindova, Williamson, Petkova, & Sever, 2005).1 Second, stories that cover local events, 
rather than events that happened in other countries (Gant & Dimmick, 2000; Peterson, 
1979) are more newsworthy. Third, the larger the magnitude of the consequences of the 
event (e.g. the more people it affects) the higher the probability that it will become news 
(Galtung & Ruge, 1965; McCarthy et al., 1996). Fourth, unexpectedness or deviance of 
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 1 While Galtung and Ruge (1965) used the term ?elitism? as a criterion of newsworthiness, a similar 
construct?prominence?already exists in management literature (Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rindova et al., 
2006), which is why I use the latter term in this essay. 
 
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 the event is a good predictor of its newsworthiness (Katz, 1987; McCarthy et al., 1996; 
Peterson, 1979). Fifth, the story has to have happened recently to be newsworthy (Gant & 
Dimmick, 2000). Sixth, the amount of conflict associated with an event increases the 
likelihood of it making the news (Peterson, 1979). Seventh, personalization or 
association of an event with a particular person as a reason for the occurrence increases 
newsworthiness of the event (Peterson, 1979). In its extreme, the coverage of 
newsworthy events can result in ?a picture of the world?s events characterized by erratic, 
dramatic, and uncomplicated surprises, by negative or conflictual events involving elite 
nations and persons? (Peterson, 1979: 124). 
 Besides the characteristics of the event itself, the context of the coverage 
determines whether the event is likely to make it to the news. Specifically, if the event is 
a continuation of an ongoing story, it is more likely to be reported on. A report of one 
unexpected or negative event, for instance, may trigger reports of other similar stories 
that add to the original report (Breen, 1997). Such waves of news stories are called 
?attention cycles?sudden ascendance of an issue from previous obscurity to a sustained 
prominence (indexed by the number of stories, by column inches, or by minutes and 
seconds of a telecast) that dominates the news for a period of time before once again 
fading from media attention? (McCarthy et al., 1996: 481). In addition, other competing 
news stories are an important contextual factor because journalists have limited time and 
resources and thus must make choices about which stories are more newsworthy. While 
these attributes of newsworthiness were tested before people had a 24/7 access to 
information, psychological mechanisms that explain the selection of newsworthy events, 
such as salience and attention, remain the same (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Thus, it is not 
 
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 only the characteristics of the event or organization itself, but also the context of the 
concurrent media reports that determines newsworthiness of the story. 
 Organizations can also take an active role in managing their coverage in news 
media. Geographical location of the organization, for instance, makes it more likely for 
journalists to report on events that take place in local organizations. Additionally, 
journalists develop relationships with leaders in organizations located close to news 
media offices (Westphal & Deephouse, 2011). Organizations also may choose to issue 
information subsidies that provide information about organizational actions to the 
journalists and the public (Gant & Dimmick, 2000; Zavyalova, Pfarrer, Reger, & Shapiro, 
2012). It should be noted that journalists take into account the search costs when looking 
for the news (Gant & Dimmick, 2000). Thus reporting on organizations that are located 
close to the news agency or organizations that provide readily available information 
about their actions helps save on search costs.  
 This review of literature on newsworthiness of events and people in general can 
be extrapolated into the organizational context. First, actions taken by well-known 
organizations are likely to be publicized more. The names of well-known organizations 
are recognized by stakeholders, and journalists are more likely to report on prominent 
organizations than on organizations unfamiliar to the audience. Second, negative actions 
committed by organizational actors or negative events in organizations are more likely to 
be covered in the news than positive actions. While coverage of negative events is 
common in the general media, articles with negative content are found rarely in the 
business media or in the business sections of newspapers.2 Several empirical studies 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 2 This preference to cover negative stories and the presence of positivity bias in the business press may be 
partly attributed to the impression management tactics taken by business organizations and close 
 
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 found a large positive skew in articles covering business organizations (Deephouse, 2000; 
Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Zavyalova et al., 2012). The prevalence 
of news coverage of business organizations positive in emotional tenor suggests that 
negative events in organizations are particularly likely to stand out in the minds of the 
audience. Third, organizational actions or events with widespread consequences for 
organizational stakeholders have a higher chance of making it to the news. For instance, 
accidents in organizations that affect a large number of stakeholders (Zyglidopoulos, 
2001) or scandals in organizations that have a high level of influence on shareholders and 
customers (Jonsson, Greve, & Fujiwara-Greve, 2009) are by definition more 
consequential, resulting in higher interest from organizational stakeholders and higher 
probability that such events will be covered in the news than less consequential events. 
Lastly, those organizations that regularly issue information subsidies such as press 
releases have a higher probability to be covered in the news because of the ease with 
which journalists can obtain information about them. Once a story about a certain 
organizational action makes it to the news, the provided information partly affects 
external stakeholders? perceptions about the organization. The change in perceptions, in 
turn, may lead to stakeholders? change in behavior toward the organization.  
News Coverage and Social Perceptions 
 Research in mass communications suggests that the news media? printed press, 
online publications, television, and radio?affect social perceptions about importance of 
issues and partly shape interpretations of events and entities covered in the news. One of 
the theories from mass communications, agenda-setting theory, explains that the news 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 relationships between journalists and business leaders mentioned earlier and partly to the audience of the 
business press (i.e. business professionals) who have a pro-business bias. 
 
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 media set the agenda for public discourse by selecting which stories to report on and 
which elements of the stories to highlight (Carroll & McCombs, 2003; McCombs & 
Reynolds, 2009; McCombs & Shaw, 1972). In his seminal work on the role of media in 
society Lippmann suggested that people base their judgments about the world on the 
information presented in the media above and beyond the information they obtain from 
direct experience (Lippmann, 1922). By informing the public about issues, the media 
create vicarious environment that informs our perceptions and ultimately future actions. 
While Lippmann did not explicitly use the words ?agenda-setting? in his early thesis, his 
work served as a basis for agenda-setting theory (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). The main 
argument of agenda-setting theory is congruent with Lippmann?s thesis: ?Through their 
day-to-day selection and display of the news, journalists focus our attention and influence 
our perceptions of the most important issues? (McCombs & Reynolds, 2009: 1). The 
authors found that issues covered in the media during political campaigns were also 
perceived as the most important by the people exposed to media coverage (McCombs & 
Shaw, 1972). By selecting and covering important issues, the news media may not 
necessarily determine what the public thinks about those issues, but they do set the 
agenda and influence what issues the public deems important to discuss. 
 Another theory from mass communications research that explores the effects of 
media on perceptions of reality is cultivation theory. According to cultivation theory, 
consistent representation of an issue over a long period of time can cultivate certain 
attitudes toward the issue. Gerbner and Gross argued that in the absence of direct 
personal experience with an issue, prolonged exposure to consistent messages in mass 
media can affect people?s sense of what is going on in the world (1976). More 
 
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 specifically, the ?cultivation hypothesis? suggested that ?those who spend more time 
watching television are more likely to perceive the real world in ways that reflect the 
most common and recurrent messages of the world of fictional television? (Morgan & 
Shanahan, 2010: 337). One of the most prevalent lines of query to test cultivation theory 
has revolved around the role of media in portrayal of crime and public perceptions about 
it. This set of studies found that the more people were exposed to crime dramas on 
television the more they became concerned about crimes in the real world (Gerbner & 
Gross, 1976; Holbrook & Hill, 2005). The hypothesized cognitive mechanism behind the 
cultivation effects is the availability heuristic??a cognitive shortcut used by decision 
makers that utilizes the ease with which knowledge can be retrieved from memory as a 
means of assessing the likelihood that future events are likely to occur, reducing the use 
of in-depth analysis? (Hayibor & Wasieleski, 2009: 152; Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). 
Shrum suggested that the availability heuristic may be an explanation for the finding that 
heavy television viewers? ?recall? of events is similar to the representation of the events 
on television (Shrum, 1995). While the empirical tests of the cultivation theory have been 
focusing on the effects of television, the psychological underpinnings of the findings can 
be extrapolated to other media, including newspapers, internet, and radio (Niederdeppe, 
Fowler, Goldstein, & Pribble, 2010). 
Media Reputation and Social Approval  
 Building on the work in mass communications research, I suggest that two 
elements of news coverage of organizations?amount and tenor of coverage?affect 
external stakeholders? familiarity with and emotional responses evoked by the name of 
 
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 the organization.3 These overall social perceptions influenced by media coverage become 
the building blocks of media reputation of organizations (Deephouse, 2000). The key 
similarity between media reputation and other social approval assets?such as reputation 
or status?is that media reputation is a subset of intangible assets of the organization and 
it resides in the social perceptions of stakeholders. Media reputation, however, differs 
from other social approval assets. Whereas general organizational reputation is derived 
through social perceptions about the ability of the organization to provide value to 
stakeholders (Rindova et al., 2006) based on evaluations of personal experiences and 
knowledge about experiences of others, media reputation is derived through social 
perceptions based on the amount of coverage and emotional tenor of portrayal of the 
organization in the news. Whereas status is derived from the centrality of organization?s 
position in the network of actors (Deephouse & Suchman, 2008; Rindova et al., 2006), 
media reputation is derived from the amount and the content of media coverage about the 
organization, regardless of its centrality in the network of other organizations. Thus, 
media reputation of an organization lies within the social perceptions of the stakeholders 
and in their interpretations of the meaning of the news media reports about the 
organization. Unlike other social approval assets, media reputation is more malleable and 
can be updated as stories about organizations make it to the news. Because, as describe 
above, organizations may affect news coverage about them by issuing information 
subsidies in the form or press releases, changing media reputation represents a short-term 
strategic orientation; changing reputation or status, on the other hand, requires a long-
 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 3 It is important to note that to be influenced by media reports on certain issues people do not have to be 
directly exposed to the messages in the media. Direct contact and discussions with friends and colleagues 
who have read, heard, or watched a specific story provide an opportunity for second-order or indirect media 
effects (Potter, 2011). Thus, media influence is not limited only to those who were exposed to the message 
directly. People can experience indirect media effects. 
 
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 term investment and dedication from the organization. 
 Organizational scholars have investigated the effect of media coverage on 
stakeholders? perceptions about organizations. These studies have hypothesized and 
found that news media help focus organizational stakeholders? attention on specific 
attributes and actions of organizations and shape their perceptions and judgments about 
the organization (Deephouse, 2000; Hayward, Rindova, & Pollock, 2004; Rindova et al., 
2005; Westphal & Deephouse, 2011). By covering the actions of selected organizations 
news media inform the public of organizational actions that they deem to be newsworthy.  
To illustrate the magnitude of this selectivity, press releases are issued weekly by 
thousands of organizations, but such business outlets as Business Week or Fortune cover 
only a fraction of organizations in a typical issue. With varying amount and tenor of 
coverage in the portrayal of selected organizations, news media personify a focal 
organization and cast it as a hero, a celebrity, a villain, or a minor player. Media 
coverage, in turn, shapes social perception about the fundamental nature of the 
organization. Stakeholders partly base their judgments about organizations on the 
information from the news media. By portraying vicarious experiences beyond 
stakeholders? direct interactions with the organization, the media influence stakeholders? 
perceptions and attitudes about organizations (Bandura, 2001).  
 Social attitudes generated by news media, in turn, affect stakeholders? actions 
toward the organization (Kim & Hunter, 1993) and ultimately financial success and 
survival of organizations (Rao, 1994). A number of management researchers have 
theorized about the role of media for increasing the prominence of organizations in the 
eyes of their stakeholders and thus affecting the financial wellbeing of organizations 
 
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 (Deephouse, 2000; Pollock & Rindova, 2003; Rao, 1994; Rindova et al., 2005). 
Investigating the effects of media coverage on financial performance of commercial 
banks, Deephouse found that favorable media coverage was associated with higher 
market share and higher return on assets. The proposed rationale for the empirically 
found association was that favorable news coverage of an organization can be viewed as 
a strategic resource that may increase the value of the organization (Deephouse, 2000). 
Large amount of media coverage of organizations in the early auto industry in the U.S. 
has been hypothesized to increase the prominence of auto manufacturers and ultimately 
to legitimize the industry and increase the chances of survival of the early auto firms 
(Rao, 1994). Higher amounts of coverage has also been found to provide legitimacy to 
firms during initial public offering (Pollock & Rindova, 2003). Overall, prior 
organizational studies found that the amount and tenor of media coverage of 
organizations influence their prominence in the eyes of stakeholders and affect financial 
success of organizations. 
 More recently, organizational scholars have started opening the ?black box? of 
media coverage, investigating empirically how organizations and their members take an 
active role in affecting the amount and tenor of coverage. Kennedy examined the effect 
of firm-issued information subsidies on media mentions of firms in a nascent industry 
(Kennedy, 2008). He found empirical support that news media were more likely to 
mention those firms in the computer workstation market who issued more press releases 
in the early stages of the industry. This coverage, in turn, predicted survival of the firms. 
Similarly, public relations efforts taken by firms were found to affect firms? visibility in 
news media (Kiousis, Popescu, & Mitrook, 2007). Zavyalova and her colleagues found 
 
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 that firm-issued information subsidies affected the way toy firms were covered in the 
news after product recalls (Zavyalova et al., 2012). Westphal and Deephouse provided 
more empirical evidence to suggest that journalists? report about organizations are 
influenced, in part, by executives of those organizations (Westphal & Deephouse, 2011). 
Taken together, these studies suggest that news agencies are not independent information 
intermediaries, but rather active participants in the organizational field that can be 
affected by organizations.  
 In sum, the research from mass communications and organizational sudies has 
gathered empirical evidence supporting the idea that, under certain conditions, news 
coverage of issues may influence people?s perceptions about them. By doing so, news 
media create a vicarious experience that becomes one of the bases for human actions 
(Bandura, 2001). Organizational theorists have proposed that organizations can take an 
active role in influencing the way news media portray them. This news coverage about 
organizations, in turn, affects external stakeholders? decisions regarding transactions with 
organizations.  
DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS 
 Although prior organizational research has looked at the effect of amount and 
tenor of news coverage of organizations on stakeholders? decisions to transact with the 
organization (Deephouse, 2000; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Pollock & Rindova, 2003), this work 
has not investigated the fundamental differences between positive and negative emotional 
tenor of coverage. As a result, in the empirical analyses these studies relied on the Janis-
 Fadner coefficient of imbalance (Janis & Fadner, 1943) to measure favorability of news 
coverage. This measure, however, has two limitations. The coefficient is calculated as 
 
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 follows: 
!
 where P is the number of positive articles about a firm, N is the number of negative 
articles about it, and V is the total volume of articles about it, including articles that are 
neutral in tenor. The use of the JF coefficient is problematic for two reasons. First, the 
coefficient does not differentiate between different profiles of media coverage. It is equal 
to zero when an organization is covered by an equal amount of positive and negative 
articles or when an organization is covered only by articles neutral in tenor. Articles with 
divergent emotional content, however, do not generate the same emotional responses 
from audiences as articles that do not contain emotional words. Additionally, the JF 
coefficient equally weights positive and negative media coverage. Empirical assignment 
of equal weights to measures of positive and negative media coverage, however, is 
inconsistent with research in psychology that has established that positive and negative 
emotions lie on two different continua (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). First, negative emotions 
are more complex. People are more elaborate when listing the number of negative 
emotions they may feel than the number of positive emotions (Rozin & Royzman, 2001). 
As Tolstoy famously noted in his opening line of Anna Karenina, ?All happy families are 
alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.? Second, we perceive negative 
information as more diagnostic about an individual or an entity we evaluate, particularly 
when we evaluate the individual?s moral character (Mishina, Block, & Mannor, 2011, 
2012; Skowronski & Carlston, 1987). Because people generally expect positive outcomes 
(Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Regan, Snyder, & Kassin, 1995), negative information is more 
salient and memorable as it violates prior expectations. This is especially true for 
 
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 negative business news because of the previously mentioned positive bias in business 
press. Retrieval of negative information, due to its saliency and memorability, is easier 
and it affects human decision making with more likelihood than positive information 
(Hastie & Dawes, 2001). Third, people in negative emotional states tend to be more 
judicious during their decision making, searching for more information, evaluating 
options more carefully, and relying less on heuristics (Frank, 1988; Seo & Barrett, 2007). 
Fourth, the literature on human emotions suggest that negative information is as much as 
five times more salient than positive information (Richey, Koenigs, Richey, & Fortin, 
1975), which creates the negativity bias?or propensity to give more weight to negative 
stimuli than to positive stimuli when evaluating a target (Richey et al., 1975). Thus, 
negative and positive emotions are two theoretically different constructs that evoke 
different decision making schemas and processes, and thus, should be studied as separate 
attributes of news coverage. Previous organizational studies, however, have not taken 
into account the effect of prior positive and negative news coverage of organizations on 
stakeholders? reactions to disruptive events. 
 I address the inconsistencies in prior theorizing of media effects and empirical 
measures of news coverage by presenting the typology of media reputations of 
organizations that takes into account the differences between the amount as well as the 
emotional tenor of news coverage. I argue that the amount of news coverage affects 
stakeholder familiarity with the organization, while the emotional tenor of news coverage 
evokes different emotions associated with the name of the organization. Subsequent 
reactions to information about disruptive events in organizations whose name is not 
recognized may be evaluated differently than the same information about familiar and 
 
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 well-known organizations. Research in psychology, for instance, suggests that the way 
people evaluate targets depends on two aspects: 1) their familiarity with the targets and 2) 
the tenor of information about them (i.e. positive vs. negative) (Hastie & Dawes, 2001). 
As mentioned above, positive and negative tenor of information about the target are two 
distinct emotions that have varying effects on how people form judgments about the 
target after receiving additional, negative, information about it (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). 
As prior research has shown, once people form an attitude (positive or negative) about an 
entity, that attitude organizes subsequent judgments (Lingle & Ostrom, 1979; Loken, 
1984 as cited in (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Thus to understand how stakeholders would 
react to disruptions in organizations, one should take into account which archetype the 
media reputation of an organization corresponds to.  
Celebrity Organizations 
 In the seminal work on firm celebrity, Rindova and colleagues develop the 
construct of celebrity firms, or those firms that ?attract a high level of public attention 
and generate positive emotional responses from stakeholder audiences? (Rindova et al., 
2006). By taking nonconforming actions, or actions outside of accepted norms of the 
industry, celebrity organizations become attractive targets for creation of dramatic 
narratives about them (Rindova et al., 2006). The type of the actions determines whether 
the firm experiences positive or negative responses by the audience. The media play a 
key role in shaping firm celebrity by selecting which firms to report on and how to report 
on their actions. By increasing the amount of coverage about organizations as well as by 
evoking positive emotional responses from the audiences, the news media do not simply 
report on celebrity firms, but rather, proactively create celebrity firms by personifying 
 
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 them and making them protagonists of the stories (Rindova et al., 2006). Such 
organizations as Apple and Google are examples of celebrity organizations that are 
covered through positive portrayal of their leadership and non-conforming actions.  
Infamous Organizations 
In their work on firm celebrity, Rindova and her colleagues mention that some 
firms may be infamous?or ?attract significant public attention with negative emotional 
responses? (2006: 51). To date, however, no research has explored the ramification of 
this type of news coverage for stakeholder reactions to negative disruptions. This is an 
important type of organizations to consider because many organizations experience 
highly negative publicity at some point during their lifespan. Organizations may generate 
negative publicity in two ways. Organizations may experience large amount of negative 
media coverage due to their direct involvement in a large-scale wrongdoing?negative 
disruption that place their stakeholders at risk (Zavyalova et al., 2012)?such as the BP 
oil spill or a fatal accident by a Costa Concordia cruise ship. The other reason 
organizations may experience negative publicity is due to their involvement in a series of 
negative disruptive events, such as sales of products with negative side effects by Phillip 
Morris. By personifying infamous organizations and emphasizing their negative actions, 
the news media create antagonists of their narratives evoking negative emotional 
responses from stakeholders.  
Peripheral Organizations 
 Peripheral organizations are those organizations whose coverage is neutral in 
tenor and who are thus covered less frequently by the news media than celebrity 
organizations. The media portray peripheral organizations in neutral terms, without 
 
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 developing their character and identity, personifying the organization, or using emotions 
when covering them. Peripheral organizations are not covered with the use of the 
elements of a dramatic narrative, rather media reports primarily on the financial facts and 
mundane actions about the organization. Much like peripheral actors in a dramatic 
narrative, the names of peripheral organizations are recognized by stakeholders, but 
public evaluation of their character is rarely made because of lack of information. While 
the names of such organizations as Danaher or Cargill appear frequently in the media, 
media reports have few characteristics of a dramatic narrative, they rarely personify the 
organizations, nor do they use emotional language to describe organizational actions. 
Based on media reports of undramatized facts about organizational life, such as financial 
statements and organizational changes, the names of peripheral organizations do not 
evoke emotional responses among stakeholders.  
Unfamiliar Organizations 
 I define unfamiliar organizations as organizations with low name recognition by 
stakeholders because these organizations do not attract public attention and are not 
widely covered by the media. If the news media do not cover organizational actions the 
level of familiarity with the organization among stakeholders who do not have a direct 
contact with the organization is low. There are thousands of companies and organizations 
that are mentioned in the media every year, which results in audience information 
overload. As the review of mass communications research on newsworthiness suggests, 
for an audience to be familiar with the name of a specific organization, it has to be 
mentioned often in the media. Organizations can be unfamiliar either because it is a 
strategic choice of the organization to stay away from the media spotlight or because 
 
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 journalists do not find organizational actions newsworthy. In either case, unfamiliar 
organizations are those organizations about whom stakeholders are not aware and whose 
level of familiarity among organizational stakeholders is low.  
 This typology of organizational archetypes generated through news coverage 
emphasizes that stakeholder perceptions about organizations vary in terms of their 
familiarity with the organization and evoked emotional states. These prior perceptions 
about organizations, in turn, affect stakeholder interpretations of disruptive events and 
severity of stakeholder reactions to the disruptive events, the point I develop next. 
STAKEHOLDER REACTIONS TO ORGANIZATIONAL DISRUPTIONS 
 Organizational disruptions?or events that are ?difficult to foresee and whose 
impacts on organizations are potentially inimical? (Desai, 2011)?taint the name of the 
organization and violate stakeholders? expectations about appropriate organizational 
conduct. Such disruptions as boycotts, stock market crashes, and industrial accidents 
reduce social approval of organizations (Fombrun, 1996; Mishina, Dykes, Block, & 
Pollock, 2010; Pfarrer, DeCelles, Smith, & Taylor, 2008) and have been found to have a 
negative impact on stakeholders? willingness to dedicate financial resources to and 
transact with the organization (King & Soule, 2007; Rhee & Haunschild, 2006; Schnietz 
& Epstein, 2005; Zyglidopoulos, 2001). These decisions, in turn, are associated with the 
organization?s success and survival.   
 A stream of organizational research has examined the effects of media coverage 
of negative disruptions in organizations on stakeholder perceptions and behaviors toward 
the organization. In the context of auto recalls, for instance, Rhee and Haunschild found 
that severe product recalls by highly reputable firms were associated with lower market 
 
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 share (Rhee & Haunschild, 2006). The authors theorized that higher media attention to 
product recalls in reputable firms was one of the mechanisms through which the market 
gathered information about recalls and made decisions about purchasing the products 
(Rhee & Haunschild, 2006). Similarly, Jonsson and colleagues found that a deviant act by 
one insurance firm resulted in stakeholders? withdrawal of transactions with mutual fund 
subsidiaries of similar insurance firms (Jonsson et al., 2009). The authors theorized that 
widespread media accounts of the deviant act affected stakeholders? reactions toward the 
firm and the industry. Investigating the effect of industrial accidents on firms? 
reputational scores Zyglidopoulos provided theoretical arguments that the amount of 
attention the media paid to the event influenced the magnitude of reputational loss after 
an accident (2001). Overall, these studies provided theoretical arguments about the role 
of media in affecting stakeholder evaluation of disruptive events in organizations and 
decisions about future transactions with organizations. 
 Because people usually have positive expectations about the future (Cacioppo & 
Gardner, 1999; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Parducci, 1968; Regan et al., 1995) media 
coverage of unexpected disruptive events invokes negative reactions from stakeholders 
and lower social approval of organizations. Once stakeholders? expectations are violated 
by a negative event, they may feel that their trust has been betrayed and that the social 
contract between them and the organization has been broken (Morrison & Robinson, 
1997; Rousseau, 1989). Disruptions may thus have a negative impact on stakeholders? 
perceptions about the organization and lead to withdrawal from transactions with the 
organization. Overall, the consensus in organization research is that organizations that are 
subject to disruptions lose stakeholders? approval (Pfarrer et al., 2008; Suchman, 1995; 
 
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 Zyglidopoulos, 2001), which manifests itself in forms of social penalties, such as 
boycotts (King & Soule, 2007), and financial penalties, such as withdrawal from 
transactions with the organizations (Jonsson et al., 2009). 
 The consensus in organizational research that disruptive events result in loss of 
stakeholder approval has been recently challenged to suggest that the effect of disruptions 
is not uniform for all organizations. Organizational scholars have found that the amount 
of social disapproval and financial damage caused by the disruption depends on 
stakeholder?s prior perceptions about the organization (Jonsson et al., 2009; Pfarrer et al., 
2010; Rhee & Haunschild, 2006; Schnietz & Epstein, 2005). Combining research in mass 
communications and organization theory, Pfarrer and colleagues found that firm 
celebrity?an intangible asset that firms build by attracting ?a high level of public 
attention and generat[ing] positive emotional responses from stakeholder audiences? 
(Rindova et al., 2006: 51)?buffered firms from financial losses following negative 
earnings surprises. This finding indicates that prior news coverage about organizations 
affects stakeholders? reactions to disruptive events.  
 Organizational studies, however, assume that media coverage of non-celebrity 
organizations is homogenous and prior work does not investigate stakeholder reactions to 
disruptive events in celebrity organizations vs. organizations with various amount and 
tenor of media coverage. Additionally, as I discussed above, the empirical measure of 
celebrity used in the study?the JF coefficient?is inconsistent with research on 
emotions. I thus use the typology of organizations develop in this study to build 
theoretical propositions that more fully examine the effects of disruptive events on the 
four organizational archetypes. 
 
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 The main arguments on which I base my theorizing is that stakeholders? 
interpretation of a disruptive event and their subsequent decisions whether to transact 
with the organization depend on the level of familiarity with the organization and the 
emotional state evoked by the mentions of the organization in the news media. The two 
dimensions of stakeholders? attitude to the organization?familiarity and emotional 
state?correspond to the two attributes of news coverage about organizations?amount 
and tenor of coverage. Specifically, higher amount of news coverage about organizations 
is associated with higher levels of familiarity with the name of the organization while the 
prevalence of positive or negative emotional tenor in news coverage about an 
organization evokes positive or negative emotions. The level of familiarity and type of 
emotions evoked by the name of the organization, in turn, affect how stakeholders 
interpret information about disruptions and what decisions they make regarding future 
transactions with the organization.  
Disruptions in Celebrity Organizations 
Names of celebrity organizations evoke positive emotional states among 
stakeholders, which in turn may lead to stakeholders ignoring negative information about 
disruptions in celebrity organizations. People tend to pay more attention to affect-
 congruent information (Forgas, 1995). When positive emotions are evoked by the name 
of the organization, negative information about disruptions is incongruent with the 
already evoked emotional response and is likely to be ignored. When stakeholders learn 
about disruptions in celebrity organizations, the new negative information about 
disruptive events may be ignored because it is inconsistent with the positive emotions 
evoked through prior news coverage (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). When in a positive 
 
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 emotional state, people tend to make decisions based on heuristics?or mental 
shortcuts?rather than be analytical and attend to details about a new piece of 
information (Eagly & Chaiken, 1992). Additionally, any cues discrepant from the already 
formed judgment about an entity create cognitive dissonance and thus receive less 
attention (Festinger, 1957). The theoretical work on firm celebrity has been recently 
tested empirically, to examine the role that celebrity plays in light of negative events 
(Pfarrer et al., 2010). Pfarrer and colleagues find that celebrity firms are buffered from 
financial losses following negative earnings surprises, thus indicating that celebrity could 
be a valuable asset, particularly in light of organizational disruptions. This buffering 
effect, the authors argue, may be due to stakeholders? general positive interpretive frame 
that celebrity generates among the audiences. Overall, because of initial positive 
emotions evoked by the name of a celebrity organization, stakeholders tend to ignore or 
downplay the importance of negative news about disruptions in celebrity organizations. 
Disruptions in Infamous Organizations 
Infamous organizations evoke negative emotional responses from stakeholders by 
the mere mention of their name. When in a negative affective state, people tend to pay 
more attention to negative information and information that is congruent with their 
current mood (Forgas, 1995). Additionally, when negative emotions are evoked people 
are more careful during their decision making process (Seo, Goldfarb, & Barrett, 2010) 
and pay more attention to details about newly presented information, rather than to the 
big picture (Gasper & Clore, 2002). Once stakeholders create negative associations with 
an entity, such as an infamous organization, they tend to react negatively to the entity 
(Hastie & Dawes, 2001). Overall, compared to celebrity organizations, names of 
 
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 infamous organizations lead to more careful and analytical processing of information 
about disruptions, more attention to the details about the negative disruptive event, and 
less cognitive dissonance created by the new information about negative disruptions. 
Thus I propose: 
Proposition 1: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw more transactions 
from infamous organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
celebrity organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event. 
Disruptions in Peripheral Organizations  
 When the news about a peripheral organization engaging in a negative disruptive 
event becomes public, stakeholders will evaluate the organization based on this negative 
news. Because, by definition, prior news coverage of the peripheral organization is not 
rich in emotional content, the new negative information about a disruption will constitute 
the base of the future emotional evoked by the name of the peripheral organization. 
Particularly, as research in decision making suggests, when we do not have strong 
attitudes towards an object, our judgments are largely based on the ?current state, which 
includes fragments (memory traces) of our past experience; these fragments are biased by 
what we now believe (or feel) to be true to an extent much greater than we know 
consciously? (Hastie & Dawes, 2001). Compared to celebrity organizations, stakeholder 
attitudes to peripheral organizations are either neutral or slightly positive. This is because 
of the ?mere exposure effect?, which suggests that people tend to like objects they are not 
familiar with, even such objects as nonsense words or Chinese ideographs,, the more they 
encounter them (Bornstein, 1989; Zajonc, 1968). The mere exposure effect was 
incorporated to research in psychology from word frequency research, where individuals 
 
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 exposed to nonsense words and syllables rated more frequently appearing stimuli as more 
pleasant (Johnson, Thomson, & Frincke, 1960). In the same vein, mere exposure to 
names of peripheral organizations in the news, may generate slightly positive affect 
towards them. However, this attitude is less positive than to celebrity organizations that 
experience higher levels of positive news coverage, and less negative than towards 
infamous organizations that experience higher levels of negative news coverage. Thus the 
news about a disruptive event in a peripheral organization is more likely to form a more 
negative judgment about the peripheral organization relative to celebrity organization, yet 
less negative judgment about the peripheral organization than infamous organization. 
Thus I propose: 
Proposition 2: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw more transactions 
from peripheral organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
celebrity organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event.  
Proposition 3: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw fewer transactions 
from peripheral organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
infamous organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event.  
Disruptions in Unfamiliar Organizations  
When the media report about a disruption in an unfamiliar organization, not only 
does the name of the organization not evoke any emotional responses, but it is also not 
recognized by stakeholders because of lack of prior news coverage. Stakeholders may not 
attend to the media coverage about a negative disruption because of the lack of 
familiarity with the name of the organization. Subsequently, because the low level of 
familiarity about this type of organizations, stakeholders may not be as diligent about 
 
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 reading the news articles about unfamiliar organizations (Forgas & Fiedler, 1996). 
Furthermore, the lack of attention during initial reading of news articles about disruptions 
in unfamiliar organizations may increase name recognition of the organization among 
stakeholders. The increased recall of the name of the organization, in turn may result in 
higher levels of transactions with the organization in the future as their names will 
become more familiar after the news coverage of disruptions. For instance, a marketing 
study found that negative book reviews resulted in increased sales of the books written by 
unknown authors, while negative reviews of well-known authors lead to drop in sales 
(Berger, Sorensen, & Rasmussen, 2010).  
Relative to celebrity organizations, whose names evoke positive emotional 
responses (Pfarrer et al., 2010), fast processing of information (Fiske & Taylor, 1991), 
and, at times, disregard for mood-incongruent information (Forgas, 1995), the news about 
disruptions in unfamiliar organizations is more damaging for the latter group of 
organizations. Relative to infamous organizations, on the other hand, disruptions in 
unfamiliar organizations attract less attention and are processed with less care. Relative to 
peripheral organizations, on the other hand, stakeholder reactions to disruptions in 
unfamiliar organizations are less negative. This is because stakeholder familiarity with 
peripheral organizations is higher than with unfamiliar organizations and the level of 
emotional responses evoked by the name of the organizations, although slightly positive, 
is low. In this case, stakeholders? interpretation of the negative news about a disruptive 
event may be based on a recognition heuristic. This heuristic suggests that, when 
presented a choice of two, people tend to ?infer that the recognized object has the higher 
value with respect to the criterion? (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002). Additionally, a more 
 
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 familiar object is judged to have a higher value with respect to the criterion than a less 
familiar object (Honda, Abe, Matsuka, & Yamagishi, 2011). Thus when exposed to the 
news about disruptions in more familiar peripheral organizations compared to unfamiliar 
organizations, stakeholders may be more likely to ?recall? that the negative disruption 
took place in a peripheral, rather than unfamiliar organization, because of higher 
familiarity with the name of a peripheral organization. Thus, I propose: 
Proposition 4: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw more transactions 
from unfamiliar organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
celebrity organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event.  
Proposition 5: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw fewer transactions 
from unfamiliar organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
infamous organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event.  
Proposition 6: All else being equal, stakeholders withdraw fewer transactions 
from unfamiliar organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event than 
peripheral organizations that have engaged in a disruptive event.  
CONCLUSION 
Theoretical Contributions 
In this essay I aimed to answer calls for further exploration of the role of news 
coverage of organizations and more in-depth theorizing about organizational types 
resulting from varying news coverage (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Rindova et al., 2006). 
While prior research in this area has only investigated the role of firm celebrity in light of 
negative events (Pfarrer et al., 2010), this study extends this line of inquiry by examining 
the role of peripheral, unfamiliar, and infamous organizations. By exploring the role of 
 
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 audiences? familiarity and their emotional attitude to the focal organization, I developed 
propositions that compare how all four types of organizations are affected by disruptions.  
The theory developed in this paper contributes to research on the role of media 
reputation during organizational disruptions. First, I contribute to research on media 
reputation and firm celebrity (Deephouse, 2000; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rindova et al., 2006) 
by exploring the differences between the amount of positive and negative news coverage. 
While prior studies have either neglected the role of negative media coverage or used 
empirical measures that treat positive and negative coverage as equally important, I rely 
on research in psychology and decision making and suggest that the type of emotional 
responses evoked by the organization?s name have different effects on stakeholders? 
attention to and interpretation of disruptive events. By introducing the constructs of 
unfamiliar, peripheral, and infamous organizations, I extend research on firm celebrity, 
which has explored the theoretical and practical implications of large volumes of positive 
media coverage for a firm (i.e. ?firm celebrity?), but has been silent about how other 
types of news coverage of organizations may alter social perceptions and affect 
stakeholders? decision to transact with organizations following a disruption. Additionally, 
relying on research in psychology I propose that staying away from media spotlight (i.e. 
being an unfamiliar organization) may provide a buffer during disruptions. 
The typology and theoretical propositions developed in this essay contribute to 
research on organizational disruptions. Whereas recent organizational studies have only 
begun to explore the role of social approval assets during negative disruptions in 
organizations (Jonsson et al., 2009; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rhee & Haunschild, 2006), the 
role of media-generated organizational reputation has not been explored for organizations 
 
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 with low levels of familiarity as well as for organizations with negative media coverage. 
The introduced typology provides more nuanced theorizing about the role of media 
reputation during disruptions. 
Directions for Future Research  
The simplifying assumptions made to develop the typology of media reputation 
and to examine the effect of disruptions on the four types of organizations provide an 
opportunity for a number of venues for future research. First, I did not examine the 
differences in reactions to disruption by different groups of stakeholders (i.e. investors, 
customers, suppliers, and the public at large). It is possible, for instance, that while 
customers may react negatively to disruptive events, investors may interpret the same 
disruption as a necessary strategic action that increases shareholders? wealth. The type of 
transactions between an organization and the stakeholder group in question would be a 
partial determinant of reactions to various disruptions. It may be the case that different 
stakeholder groups interpret similar information about disruptions differently. 
Additionally, I have not investigated a possibility of different reactions to 
disruptive events among stakeholders within a particular stakeholder group. For instance, 
individuals who feel personal attachment to and involvement with an organization may 
be less affected by the negative news coverage about the disruption in the organization 
and have a more detailed picture of the story through other sources of information. The 
level of organizational identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) may also affect how 
stakeholders interpret the disruption and whether they justify the event or condemn the 
organization for it. Personally involved stakeholders may be more diligent in 
understanding the circumstances of the disruptive event and obtain detailed news media 
 
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 accounts about the event before making a final decision whether to withdraw transactions 
from the organization or not. 
While I did not examine the heterogeneity of different news media sources 
regarding their effectiveness to evoke emotional responses among stakeholders, it is 
likely that some sources are deemed more credible than others and thus are more 
persuasive and trustworthy in their portrayal of organizations. With the increase in 
reliance of stakeholders on blogs, organizational websites, and social media as sources of 
information about organizations, investigations about the differential effects of 
newspapers, television, radio shows, or social media on stakeholder perceptions may be 
an informative venue for organizational studies.  
Another possible extension of the study is in exploring how stakeholder reactions 
to disruptions in organizations may be affected by the type of the disruptive event. In this 
essay I have not discussed the role of firm responsibility for the disruption attributed to it 
by the public or the consequences of the disruptive event for organizational stakeholders. 
It is possible that the role of media coverage of the organization prior to a disruption is 
less pronounced when the disruption was due to irresponsible organizational actions or if 
the disruption resulted in large-scale negative consequences.  
The role of the contextual factors may also impact the proposed relationships 
between disruptions and stakeholder reactions towards organizations with different types 
of media reputation. For instance, the role of news coverage of and social attitudes 
toward the industry in which a focal organization operates may alter the proposed 
relationships. It is possible that the propositions developed in the study are not applicable 
 
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 to firms in industries that are viewed especially negatively by the public (i.e. tobacco, 
alcohol or firearms).  
Lastly, whereas I focused on extreme values of positive or negative emotional 
responses associated with the name of an organization, I have ignored more complex 
forms of organizations, those organizations that may experience relatively equal amounts 
of positive and negative publicity. Much like in drama where complex characters undergo 
development throughout a narrative (Hoffman & Murphy, 2005), complex organizations 
may generate a range of emotional responses. For instance, Wal-Mart may evoke positive 
responses when the media covers its cheap prices for prescription medication or its policy 
to encourage suppliers produce environmentally friendly products; the company may 
evoke negative responses when the media covers its treatment of employees. Explicating 
stakeholder reactions to disruptions in such organizations relative to the four types 
described in this essay may provide a fruitful opportunity for future research. I encourage 
future studies to build on the developed propositions and to explore their boundaries.  
  
 
 
 
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 CHAPTER 3: ESSAY 2 
THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION AND REPUTATION 
FOLLOWING DISRUPTIONS 
Abstract 
 
The findings of recent studies on the role of organizational reputation in light of 
disruptions have been inconsistent: some suggest that high reputation attenuates the 
negative effect of disruptions on stakeholders? decision to transact with the organization, 
while others find an amplifying effect. I address these inconsistencies by exploring how 
stakeholders? organizational identification influences the way they interpret the role of 
organizational reputation following disruptions. The results of empirical analyses in the 
context of on-campus murders in U.S. universities in 2001-2009 indicate that disruptions 
are associated with fewer transactions by low-identification stakeholders and only highly 
reputable organizations experience this effect. The findings are opposite for high-
 identification stakeholders: this group increases levels of transactions with highly 
reputable organizations after disruptions. This study provides a promising resolution to 
the inconsistencies found in prior research by suggesting an important variable that 
affects stakeholders? reactions to negative events and extends theory on organizational 
reputation by examining the differences in the value of this intangible asset derived by 
different stakeholder groups.  
 
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 Organizational disruptions ? or events that are ?difficult to foresee and whose 
impact on organizations is potentially inimical? (Desai, 2011) ? taint the name of the 
organization and violate stakeholders? expectations about appropriate organizational 
conduct. We expect that our food and products will not contain hazardous materials, that 
our schools will be safe to attend, and that airplanes will land (Coombs, 2012). Such 
disruptions as boycotts, stock market crashes, and industrial accidents reduce social 
approval of organizations (Fombrun, 1996; Mishina et al., 2010; Pfarrer et al., 2008) and 
have been found to have a negative impact on stakeholders? willingness to dedicate 
financial resources to and transact with the organization (King & Soule, 2007; Rhee & 
Haunschild, 2006; Schnietz & Epstein, 2005; Zyglidopoulos, 2001). These decisions, in 
turn, are associated with the organization?s success and survival.  
Recent studies extend the research on disruptive events in organizations by 
suggesting that the effect of disruptions on stakeholder?s willingness to transact with 
organizations in the future is not homogenous (Jonsson et al., 2009; Pfarrer et al., 2010; 
Rhee & Haunschild, 2006; Schnietz & Epstein, 2005; Wade, Porac, Pollock, & Graffin, 
2006). Specifically, the amount of future transactions depends on organizational 
reputation?or public recognition and perceived social approval of the organization?s 
ability to create value relative to its competitors (Barnett, Jermier, & Lafferty, 2006; 
Deephouse, 2000; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rindova et al., 2005). However, theory and 
empirical findings have been mixed. Some studies have found that highly reputable 
organizations are buffered from financial penalties in light of disruptions, supporting the 
notion that high reputation provides a cushion that attenuates the negative impact of 
disruptions on the level of stakeholders? transactions with the organization (Fombrun, 
 
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 1996; Love & Kraatz, 2009; Pfarrer et al., 2010). In contrast, other researchers have 
argued and found empirically that high reputation exacerbates the amount of financial 
damage experienced after a disruption (Rhee & Haunschild, 2006; Wade et al., 2006). 
Thus the theoretical and empirical question remains unresolved: why in some cases does 
high organizational reputation serve as a buffer, attenuating the negative impact of 
disruptions on the level of transactions between the organization and its stakeholders, and 
in other cases it amplifies the magnitude of transaction withdrawal after the negative 
event?  
The goal of this paper is to suggest a theoretically substantiated resolution to the 
conflicting findings. Specifically, I explicate a particularly promising contingency under 
which the role of organizational reputation after a disruption may vary. I argue that the 
inconsistencies of prior studies are due to implied homogeneity of organizational 
stakeholders in the meaning they derive from high organizational reputation. Specifically, 
building on research in social psychology and organization theory, I develop theoretical 
arguments to explain how organizational reputation is likely to be viewed differently by 
stakeholder groups who vary in terms of their identification with the organization.  
Prior research on organizational identification, defined as the sense of cognitive 
connection between an individual and an organization and perceive oneness with an 
organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994), suggests that 
the level of identification with an organization affects stakeholders? actions. Research on 
organizational identification suggests that individuals identify with organizations to 
categorize their social selves in social interaction (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). 
Identification with an organization creates a cognitive link between the individual and 
 
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 organization and alters individual perceptions about and attitudes toward the organization 
(Rao et al., 2003). Individuals who identify closely with an organization perceive that the 
future and the well-being of the organization is connected to their own identity (Ashforth 
& Mael, 1989).  
Theory suggests that when an organization is facing social disapproval after a 
disruption stakeholders who closely identify with the organization will perceive such an 
event as a threat to personal identity and will actively engage in supporting the 
organization to repair public perceptions about it (Bartel, 2001; Elsbach & Kramer, 1996; 
Fombrun & van Riel, 2004).  This research suggests that different stakeholders? relations 
with and attitudes toward the organization determine how they perceive disruptive events 
that take place within the organization. High levels of organizational identification are 
thus consequential for the actions that individuals take towards the organization (Bartel, 
2001). However, this important characteristic of organizational stakeholders has not been 
investigated in the literature on the role of reputation in light of organizational 
disruptions.  
 I test the developed theory in the context of murders that took place on campuses of 
U.S. colleges and universities in 2001-2009. As hypothesized, the empirical analyses 
indicate that low-identification stakeholders engage in fewer transactions with 
organizations after disruptions. Interestingly, this relationship is more likely to be 
observed in highly reputable organizations. Stakeholders with high levels of 
identification, on the other hand, do not engage in more transactions with organizations, 
and increase the number of transactions with highly reputable organizations following 
disruptions. This study contributes to research on the role of reputation in light of 
 
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 disruptions by exploring how the level of stakeholders? identification with the 
organization affects their interpretation of the value of high reputation and thus the ability 
of reputation to buffer organizations in light of negative events. 
 The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. First, I discuss prior studies that have 
examined the role of organizational reputation in light of disruptions to highlight the 
puzzling contradiction this study addresses. I then argue that the inconsistent findings of 
prior research are due to the varying interpretations of reputation by stakeholders with 
different levels of identification with the organization. I proceed to explore how 
reputation may alter the decision to transact with an organization that has experienced a 
negative event by stakeholders with different levels of organizational identification. I 
describe the large-scale longitudinal sample and discuss methodology employed to test 
the developed hypotheses. I also present robustness checks using alternative 
operationalizations of disruptions as well as the dependent variable.  I conclude with a 
discussion of findings and propose directions for future studies. 
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES 
The Role of Organizational Reputation in Light of Disruptions 
Disruptive events violate stakeholders? expectations about appropriate 
organizational conduct. Because people usually have positive expectations about the 
future (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Parducci, 1968; Regan et al., 
1995) unexpected disruptive events invoke negative reactions from stakeholders and 
lower social approval of organizations. Such events as ?industrial disasters, airline 
crashes, toxic spills, and other catastrophes? (Desai, 2011) disturb the life of the 
organization. Once stakeholders? expectations are violated by a negative event, they may 
 
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 feel that their trust has been betrayed and that the social contract between them and the 
organization has been broken (Morrison & Robinson, 1997). Disruptions may thus have a 
negative impact on stakeholders? perceptions about the organization and lead to 
withdrawal from transactions with the organization. Overall, the early consensus in 
organization research is that organizations that are subject to disruptions lose 
stakeholders? approval (Pfarrer et al., 2008; Suchman, 1995; Zyglidopoulos, 2001), 
which manifests itself in forms of social penalties, such as boycotts (King & Soule, 
2007), and financial penalties, such as withdrawal from transactions with the 
organizations (Jonsson et al., 2009). 
This consensus has been recently challenged to suggest that the effect of 
disruptions is not uniform for all organizations. Organizational scholars have found that 
the amount of social disapproval and financial damage caused by the disruption depends 
on the reputation of the organization (Jonsson & Buhr, 2011; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rhee & 
Haunschild, 2006; Schnietz & Epstein, 2005). Most studies in the organizational 
reputation literature have concluded that being highly reputable, usually measured by 
being ranked highly by such bodies as Fortune magazine?s America?s Most Admired 
Companies, Best Companies to Work For, and U.S. News and World Report, signals to 
stakeholders an organization?s ability to create value for its stakeholders better than 
competitors (Cheah, Chan, & Chieng, 2007; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Roberts & Dowling, 
2002). Thus, organizational reputation is usually viewed as an intangible asset that results 
in higher levels of transactions and better financial performance (Deephouse, 2000; Rao, 
1994; Rindova et al., 2005). High levels of organizational reputation are not only 
indicative of the tangible resources that the organization can employ to mitigate the 
 
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 detrimental effects of disruptions, but also of the intangible assets that it has accumulated.  
Thus, the theoretical consensus in the literature is that organizational reputation 
affects stakeholders? reactions to the disruption and their decisions whether to transact 
with an organization whose name has been associated with a negative event. However, 
the nature of that effect is contested and the findings of empirical studies on the role of 
reputation in light of organizational disruptions have been contradictory. On one hand, 
reputation is associated with smaller financial damage due to withdrawal from 
transactions when an organization experiences negative events. For instance, highly 
reputable firms suffered a smaller drop in cumulative abnormal returns following 
negative earning surprises as compared to organizations with lower levels of reputation 
(Pfarrer et al., 2010 2010). Similarly, highly reputable firms did not experience a fall in 
cumulative abnormal returns following Seattle?s World Trade Organization failure in 
1999, while firms that did not possess this asset suffered financially (Schnietz & Epstein, 
2005). In the same vein, in the study of 100 America?s Most Admired companies, Love 
and Kraatz found that highly reputable firms experienced lower drop in reputational 
scores following downsizing. The authors argue that the reason for this effect is that 
stakeholders tend to give ?the benefit of the doubt? to organizations that are known for 
?good behavior? (Love & Kraatz, 2009: 321). Overall, these studies indicate that high 
reputation can be a buffer in light of negative events, attenuating the negative impact of 
disruptions on stakeholders? decision to transact with the organization. 
On the other hand, researchers have argued and found empirically that high 
reputation may amplify the negative financial impact caused by a disruptive event. For 
example, U.S. automakers with high levels of reputation suffered larger market penalties 
 
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 in terms of market share, following severe automotive recalls (Rhee & Haunschild, 
2006). Similar results were obtained by Wade and coauthors who found empirical 
evidence that highly reputable CEOs received lower compensation when the company 
was not performing well financially compared to all other CEOs (Wade et al., 2006). 
Overall, the second set of studies suggests that high reputation may inflate social 
expectations about the future actions of the organization. Highly reputable are expected 
to meet stakeholders? expectations about appropriate behaviors and produce products of 
superior quality (Rhee & Haunschild, 2006). Overall, when a highly reputable 
organization experiences a disruption, the violation of stakeholders? expectations is 
greater than if an organization with lower reputation experiences a similar disruption. 
Thus, the level of withdrawal from transactions is contingent on the severity of 
expectations violations, which in turn depend on the reputation of the organization.!
 Organizational Identification  
I propose that an important reason for the inconsistent findings regarding the role 
of organization reputation in light of disruptions is the implicit assumption that 
organizational reputation connotes a similar meaning for all stakeholders. Research 
suggests that the way people interpret new information about the target depends on their 
prior attitudes towards the target (Ahluwalia, Burnkrant, & Unnava, 2000; Berger et al., 
2010; Edwards & Smith, 1996). For instance, consumers who have prior positive 
attitudes towards the brand are more likely to counterargue negative information about 
the brand (Ahluwalia et al., 2000). Additionally, new information that disconfirms prior 
beliefs about a target is subjected to more scrutiny than information that is consistent with 
prior beliefs (Edwards & Smith, 1996). Based on this research, stakeholder groups with 
 
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 different attitudes toward the organization perceive and interpret information about 
organizational actions and events within the organization in different ways (Heil & 
Robertson, 1991; Lange, Lee, & Dai, 2011; Maurer, Bansal, & Crossan, 2011; Pfarrer et 
al., 2008). However, empirical studies that investigate the effect of organizational 
disruptions on social approval and stakeholders? decision to transact with the 
organization have not explored how stakeholders? relations with the organization may 
alter their perceptions about disruptions. Investigating how organizational identification 
affects stakeholders? decisions to transact with an organization that has experienced a 
disruption may help understand when high reputation helps organizations and when it 
hurts them.  
Organizational identification is a specific form of social identification that helps 
individuals define themselves through their connection with an organization (Mael & 
Ashforth, 1992). Organizational identification creates a cognitive link between an 
individual and an organization (Dutton et al., 1994; Mael & Ashforth, 1992) and reflects 
the degree to which an individual perceives oneness with an organization (Ashforth & 
Mael, 1989). Individuals with strong levels of organizational identification incorporate 
central and distinctive organizational characteristics into their self-definition (Dutton et 
al., 1994). By borrowing organizational characteristics to define self in social interactions 
individuals increase self esteem and reduce uncertainty about who they are (Bartel, 2001; 
Hogg & Terry, 2000). When the cognitive link between an organization and self-concept 
is strong, the identity of an organization becomes a central and salient part of and the 
basis for self-definition (Dutton et al., 1994; Kramer, 1991). For example, consumers 
who identify with Apple? may view themselves as possessing characteristics they 
 
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 associate with Apple? such as ?cool,? young and modern. A person does not have to be a 
member of the organization to identify with it. Rather, organizational identification is a 
?perceptual cognitive construct,? and to identify with an organization an individual 
?needs only perceive him- or herself as psychologically intertwined with the fate of the 
group? (Ashforth & Mael, 1989: 21). The attributes and characteristics of organizational 
identity become intertwined with personal identity, whether the individual is formally a 
member of the organization or not. Thus, organizational identification serves as a self-
 categorization mechanism during social interactions (Rao et al., 2003). 
The level of organizational identification is consequential for individual attitudes 
and behaviors towards the organization. Ashforth and Mael argue that high levels of 
organizational identification are associated with support for the organization (Ashforth & 
Mael, 1989). Members of an organization with high levels of organizational identification 
exert more work effort and cooperate closer with each other (Bartel, 2001). The feeling of 
belonging to an organization affects people?s interpretation of social stimuli regarding the 
organization. For instance, Hastorf and Cantrils? study showed that when students from 
Princeton and Dartmouth were asked to keep track of the number of infractions in a 
football game, their results were biased by favoring their own alma mater (Hastorf & 
Cantril, 1954). Close identification is associated with supportive behaviors, including 
individuals acting as ambassadors of the organization (Fombrun & van Riel, 2004). 
Fombrun and van Riel suggest that the more customers identify with an organization, the 
more likely they are to engage in supportive behaviors toward the organization (2004: 97 
as quoted in (Hong & Yang, 2009). People with high levels of organizational 
identification have been found to exert citizenship behaviors and make biased judgment 
 
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 in favor of the organization they identify with (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008). 
Overall, organizational identification influences individuals? behaviors toward the 
organization.  
Because different stakeholder groups have different degrees of affiliation with an 
organization (Scott & Lane, 2000) and derive different levels of self identity through 
organizational identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), their interpretation of and reaction 
to the news about a disruption in the organization will depend on their association with 
the organization. Much like a hostile media effect?or ?tendency of partisans on a 
controversial issue to see news coverage of that issue as biased in favor of the other side? 
(Gunther & Liebhart, 2006; Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985)?I argue, that organizational 
identification may alter the way the same message is interpreted by different 
stakeholders. Below I develop hypotheses based on theoretical arguments that explain 
why the same disruption may affect the levels of transactions by different stakeholders in 
different ways and how organizational identification affects stakeholders? interpretation 
of organizational reputation. I focus on two types of stakeholders?those who have low 
and high levels of organizational identification. 
Low-identification stakeholders. "#$%& a disruption, individuals with low levels 
of organizational identification are likely to interpret disruptions as diagnostic of the 
organization (Skowronski & Carlston, 1987) and withdraw their financial support and 
transactions. Because the self-identity of stakeholders with low levels of organizational 
identification is not tightly connected with the organization, it is easy for them to 
withdraw from future transactions with the organization. If one?s definition of self is not 
derived from the identification with an organization, disruptions experienced by the 
 
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 organization may deter such individuals and lead them to seek transactions with other, 
similar, organizations that have not experienced the disruption. Additionally, the number 
of disruptions experienced by an organization affects the likelihood that stakeholders 
with low organizational identification will decrease transactions with the organization. 
For example, empirical studies suggest that the greater the number of disruptions the 
more likely are stakeholders to disapprove of the organizational actions and stop buying 
its products (Freedman, Kearney, & Lederman, 2009, 2011; Rhee & Haunschild, 2006). 
This theorizing leads to the conclusion that low-identification stakeholders are likely to 
be deterred from transacting with an organization with an increase in the number of 
disruptions it experiences. Thus, I propose a baseline hypothesis: 
Hypothesis 1: The higher the magnitude of disruptions, the lower the level of 
transactions by low-identification stakeholders.  
Organizational reputation influences whether the media report on disruptions in 
these organizations. News organizations rely on certain criteria to determine which events 
to cover (Katz, 1987; Lee, 2008; McCarthy et al., 1996). Among other characteristics the 
unexpectedness of the event as well as involvement of an elite or notorious figure 
increase the likelihood that the event will be viewed as newsworthy (McCarthy et al., 
1996; Peterson, 1979; Rindova et al., 2006). Because highly reputable organizations are 
known for meeting and exceeding stakeholders? expectations, disruptions in such 
organizations will be viewed as unexpected and interpreted as violations of social 
expectations (Pfarrer et al., 2008). Relatedly, highly reputable organizations are familiar 
to the public, which attracts more attention to the reports on actions of such actors and 
increases the likelihood that disruptions in high-reputation organization will make it to 
 
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 the news (McCarthy et al., 1996; Peterson, 1979). Lastly, organizations with high 
reputation enjoy higher ?social esteem and special, unearned (i.e. non-merit-based) 
benefits known as privileges, which are granted to and enjoyed by high-status actors in a 
social system? (Washington & Zajac, 2005: 284), disruptions in such organizations may 
be viewed as more salient and ?newsworthy? (Jonsson & Buhr, 2011; Rhee & 
Haunschild, 2006; Rindova et al., 2006).  
The media reports on disruptions in highly reputable organizations affect 
stakeholders? perceptions about and their actions toward the organization. When exposed 
to such news coverage, stakeholders with low levels of organizational identification are 
more likely to be influenced by the media reports. This is because direct personal 
experience of these stakeholders with an organization is limited (relative to high-
 identification stakeholders) and they are more likely to rely on vicarious experiences to 
make decisions (Bandura, 2001). Additionally, because of low familiarity with and 
connectedness to the organization, low-identification stakeholders may interpret 
disruptions in highly reputable organizations as diagnostic events that signal negative 
information about the organization as a whole (Skowronski & Carlston, 1987). This 
interpretation of the disruptive event, in turn, leads to perceptions that other highly 
reputable organizations that have not experienced disruptions are more attractive (Pfarrer 
et al., 2010). Thus low-identification stakeholders are likely to withdraw transactions 
from highly reputable organizations following disruptions. Thus I hypothesize: 
Hypothesis 2: High-reputation organizations are more likely to experience the 
negative relationship between the magnitude of disruptions and the level of 
 
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 transactions by low-identification stakeholders, than organizations that do not 
possess this asset. 
High-identification stakeholders. High levels of organizational identification 
alter the way stakeholders perceive the value of organizational reputation and act toward 
the organization. Because disruptions reveal negative information about an organization 
stakeholders who are closely connected to the organization try to justify the negative 
event (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), support and defend the organization (Ashforth et al., 
2008) in order to protect their personal identity. Prior research has found that when an 
organization is faced with a disruption, individuals who closely identify with the 
organization attempt to justify the negative event and reframe the negative information 
about the organization (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996; Kovoor-Misra, 2009; Nag, Corley, & 
Gioia, 2007). High levels of identification are associated with continuous support of an 
organization, even when the provided information suggests that the organization may be 
failing (Haslam et al., 2006). The biases towards the organization by stakeholders with 
high levels of identification are likely to increase the level of supportive behaviors after a 
disruption. !
 If leaving an organization and separating the definition of self from the 
identification with the organization is difficult to do, individuals engage in 
reinterpretation of the negative event by either justifying it, making it sound acceptable, 
or taking actions which will lead to correction of the situation and to desired changes 
(Turner, 1975).  In light of a disruption, the threat to an organization may be interpreted 
as a personal threat, which may threaten the desired self-consistency among individuals 
(Ashforth et al., 2008). Because individuals need to preserve a positive self-concept 
 
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 (Weick, 1995), those stakeholders who identify closely with an organization will take 
cognitive efforts to justify the negative event and to preserve cohesiveness of self-identity 
through identification with the organization. Overall, stakeholders with high levels of 
organizational identification take cognitive and material efforts to decrease the 
detrimental effect of the disruption to the organization (and thus to self-perceptions) and 
to preserve the integrity of the organization and self (Bartel, 2001). Thus, I propose the 
second baseline hypothesis: 
Hypothesis 3: The higher the magnitude of disruptions the higher the level of 
transactions by high-identification stakeholders. 
The role of organizational reputation in light of a disruption has different 
connotations for stakeholders with high levels of organizational identification. High 
reputation does not only affect the magnitude of violations of stakeholders? expectations 
about the organization and their decisions to engage in transactions, as discussed in the 
previous section, but it also affects the value that stakeholders derive from being 
associated with the organization. Identifying with a highly reputable organization may be 
a source of increased self-esteem, which leads to higher perceived connection with the 
organization and alters stakeholders? interpretations of the organizational actions (Bartel, 
2001). Organizations with high reputation are more attractive for individuals? self-
 identification. Organizations that are more prominent, as compared to their competitors, 
are more likely to help enhance their members? self-esteem. For individuals who identify 
closely with such organizations, higher reputation of the organization is a source of 
personal prestige that is enhanced through conferring positive qualities of an organization 
to the individual, thus attaining the goal of self-enhancement (Bhattacharya, Rao, & 
 
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 Glynn, 1995; Fuller et al., 2006; Kjaergaard, Morsing, & Ravasi, 2011; Mael & Ashforth, 
1992; Smidts, Pruyn, & van Riel, 2001). When a highly reputable organization 
experiences a disruption and high levels of negative coverage in the media stakeholders 
with high levels of organizational identification are likely to perceive such disruptions as 
threats to personal identity and engage in supportive behavior. The need to restore 
consistency between the individuals? perceptions of who they are will lead to more 
support of the organizations with high organizational reputation. Thus I hypothesize: 
Hypothesis 4: High-reputation organizations are more likely to experience the 
positive relationship between the magnitude of disruptions and the level of 
transactions by high-identification stakeholders, than are organizations that do 
not possess this asset. 
DATA AND METHODS 
 I test the developed hypotheses on a comprehensive sample of U.S. colleges and 
universities that granted a four-year degree or higher in 2001-2009. I chose this setting 
for two reasons: first, examining U.S. universities allows me to investigate the impact of 
organizational disruptions on constituent groups with different levels of organizational 
identification. According to past research, university students and graduates closely 
identify with their alma mater and being a graduate of the school becomes a part of an 
individual?s self-identity (Mael, 1988). Secondly, information about the levels of 
organizational reputation is easily accessible to the general public, which allows me to 
investigate the impact of negative events on organizations whose stakeholders are aware 
of the relative standing of a specific organization relative to other peer organizations. I 
 
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 chose the timeframe because it is the most recent longitudinal data on murders in U.S. 
universities. 
Sample Construction 
I constructed the initial sample by using data from the National Center for 
Education Statistics (NCES, www.nces.ed.gov), which seeks to comprehensively compile 
information on all U.S. colleges and universities. I concentrated on all U.S. colleges and 
universities that grant a four-year degree or higher because in the broadest interpretations 
they compete for the same pool of candidates. This search resulted in 2,907 schools that 
constitute a broad organizational field. The unit of analysis is a school-year. 
Variables 
 Dependent variables. Because I hypothesize about the effects of disruptions on 
the number of transactions by two stakeholder groups with different levels of 
organizational identification, I follow prior research (Ahluwalia et al., 2000) and use two 
dependent variables in the models. I measure the level of transactions by stakeholders 
with low levels of organizational identification as the number of applicants to a given 
school in a given year. Because applicants have not yet attended the school their level of 
identification, on average, is low. For the most part, they have not spent time in this 
institution and their identity is not connected to the identity of the school at the time of 
the application. An average high school graduate applies to five to eight institutions 
(www.collegeboard.org), which signals low levels of identification with any one school. I 
collected the data on the number of applications received by each U.S. university during 
the period of the study from NCES.  
 
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 The measure of the level of transactions by stakeholders with high levels of 
organizational identification is the percentage of university alumni who made monetary 
donations to the school in a given year multiplied by 100 and logged. Because university 
alumni spent years at the organization, their identities are closely connected with the 
identity of the school (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). Additionally, percentage of alumni who 
donate to the schools is an appropriate measure of transactions by stakeholders with high 
levels of identification because organization tenure impacts levels of organizational 
identification (Barker & Tompkins, 1994) and because alumni cannot detach their 
identity from the school they attended.  
I have obtained information on the percentage of alumni participating in 
donations to their alma mater from the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). CAE is a 
national non-profit organization and ?is the nation?s sole source of empirical data on 
private giving to education, through the annual Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) 
survey and its Data Miner interactive database? (www.cae.org). CAE annually surveys all 
U.S. universities and colleges and provides information on percentage of alumni donating 
to the school for all survey respondents on an annual basis. This survey has been 
conducted for over forty years and ?consistently captur[es] about 85 percent of the total 
voluntary support to colleges and universities in the United States (www.cae.org). Both 
dependent variables are measured in year (t+1).4 
Independent variables. To measure the primary independent variable of interest, 
the number of disruptions, I turned to the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 4 To ensure that the reported results are not explained by the differences between applicants and alumni in 
perceived personal threat after murders, I use alternative operationalizations of the dependent variables 
described in the Robustness Checks of the essay. 
 
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 within the U.S. Department of Education. OPE ?formulates federal postsecondary 
education policy and administers programs that address critical national needs in support 
of [their] mission to increase access to quality postsecondary education? 
(www2.ope.gov). Among other statistics, OPE collects information on crimes committed 
on campuses of U.S. colleges and universities. I measure the magnitude of disruptions as 
a weighted sum of 1) all murders committed on campus of a given school in a given year 
and 2) a decay measure that assigns a weight of 1/n for each year after the disruption 
(Darr, Argote, & Epple, 1995; Pfarrer et al., 2010).5 Murders on campuses are an 
appropriate measure of disruptions because they are unexpected exogenous events that 
violate social expectations that school campuses should be safe to attend (Fox & Savage, 
2009). The occurrence of the murder does not depend on time-invariant characteristics of 
the school. Additionally, in my sample murders are not highly correlated with other 
criminal activities on campus, which provides further support to the notion that they are 
random and exogenous disruptive events. Murders are negatively publicized in the media 
and are likely to affect the social identity of alumni as well as decisions of future students 
to apply to the school. The decay measure is used to account for the decay of social 
memory of the disruption (Darr et al., 1995), as they are rare events and not easily 
forgotten. During the nine-year period of the study 149 murders took place in U.S. 
colleges and universities. 
I measure organizational reputation as the overall university rankings in a 
certification contest published by U.S. News and World Reports each year. This 
publication is closely monitored by school administrators (Martins, 2005), potential 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 5 I also use a non-decayed measure of disruptions in the Robustness Checks section. The results remain 
substantively unchanged. 
 
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 students (Sauder & Lancaster, 2006) and alumni (Dichev, 1999) and is one of the most 
prominent and comprehensive rankings of U.S. Universities (Rindova & Fombrun, 1999; 
Rindova et al., 2005). Rankings of organizations in certifications contests are an 
appropriate measure of organizational reputation because they provide a comparison of 
peer organizations on relevant criteria (Basdeo, Smith, Grimm, Rindova, & Derfus, 2006; 
Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rao, 1994; Rindova et al., 2005). This information, in turn, is 
considered during decision making and ultimate choices of organization with which to 
transact (Griffith & Rask, 2007).When constituents are not engaged in direct contact with 
an organization, rank ordering of similar organizations helps reduce uncertainty about 
any specific organization (Wade et al., 2006). Lastly, rankings in certification contests 
have been used as a measure of organizational reputation in past research (Basdeo et al., 
2006; Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Mishina et al., 2010; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rhee & 
Haunschild, 2006; Rindova et al., 2005). 
Control variables. I control for the overall level of criminal activity in the school 
by including the sum of all crimes, other than murders, that took place on the campus of 
the university (e.g. rapes, robberies, thefts, etc.). I also control for admissions 
requirements, measured as a categorical variable ranging from 1 to 10. This variable is 
generated based on the 75th percentile of SAT scores in math and, if the SAT scores were 
not available, ACT composite scores. Schools which have placed high in NCAA 
basketball or football championships are prone to receiving higher media coverage, 
which can lead to increased applications (Wagner, 2011). To account for this, I include 
two dummy variables for top 25 basketball and top 25 football teams in a given season. I 
collected the historical data on NCAA championship rankings from the Entertainment 
 
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 and Sports Programming Network (ESPN, www.espn.go.com). Because the level of 
alumni participation depends on the solicitation efforts of a focal university, I control for 
the number of solicited alumni. This information was obtained from the VSE survey 
mentioned above. Following prior research on school rankings (Sauder & Lancaster, 
2006), I control for the total price of attendance, measured as the total price of tuition, 
fees, room and board for out-of-state students, the number of faculty at the school, and the 
number of enrolled students. Information on school characteristics was collected from 
NCES. Lastly, to account for time invariant unobserved variables as well as changes in 
the industry over time, I include school and year fixed effects in the analyses.  
RESULTS 
Supplementing the original sample with the data from other sources described 
above resulted in a smaller final sample of schools included in the analyses. The final 
number of the subsample of schools used to predict applications is 1,554 while the 
number of schools used to predict percentage of donating alumni is 1,024. The variable 
with the most missing values which contributed to the smaller second subsample is 
percentage of donating alumni. While the CAE survey accounts for approximately ?85 
percent of voluntary support to colleges and universities in the United States? 
(www.cae.org), schools respond to the survey on a voluntary basis. 
I present the summary statistics and correlations among the variables of the entire 
sample in Tables 1-2. Additionally, I split the sample into four subsamples and present 
summary statistics for each subsample in Tables 3-6. The four subsamples are: the 
subsample used to predict the number of applicants for a) top 126, as ranked by USNWR 
and b) not top 126 schools, the subsample used to predict percentage of donating alumni 
 
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 for a) top 126 and b) not top 126 schools. I chose 126 as a cutoff point, because rankings 
below this value were not published by the USNWR during the period of the study. Using 
a binary variable that distinguishes ranked and non-ranked universities provides an 
opportunity to include all universities in the sample, instead of focusing just on the 
ranked ones. Additionally, the binary measure of reputation allows me to explicate the 
differences in dynamics among organizations that are prominent in the eyes of the 
stakeholders and those that are not prominent, because codification of relative 
organizational standing becomes a social fact that shapes stakeholder perceptions (Anand 
& Peterson, 2000; Anand & Watson, 2004). As can be seen from Tables 1-6, correlations 
between some variables are over 0.50, which may present a concern for multicollinearity 
in the data. To address this issue, I computed Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) after 
estimating the number of applications and percentage of donating alumni for schools 
ranked as top 126 and schools not ranked as top 126. The highest mean VIF in all four 
cases was 2.45, which is below the threshold of 10, indicating that multicollinearity is not 
a concern in this study (Greene, 2003). To ensure that the coefficient estimates are 
unbiased and consistent I employ a fixed-effects estimation when predicting both 
dependent variables (Wooldridge, 2002).  
To test Hypotheses 1 and 2, that predicted the number of applicants, I employ 
fixed-effects Poisson regression usually used when the dependent variable of interest is a 
count variable. To test Hypotheses 3 and 4, that predicted the percentage of donating 
alumni, I employed OLS estimations with school and year fixed effects and robust 
standard errors. Because the second dependent variable?percentage of donating 
alumni?is a variable that ranges from 0 to 100, I considered using a two-sided Tobit 
 
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 regression developed for estimations with truncated dependent variables. However, 
because the dependent variable of interest is not highly censored (i.e. there are no large 
numbers of zeros or ones) and plausible values of the dependent variable are not 
eliminated (Greene, 2003) and because Tobit models are not designed for fixed-effects 
estimations, I chose to use a fixed-effects OLS estimation with robust standard errors. 
 The results of the analyses are reported in Tables 7 and 8. As can be seen from 
Table 7, Model 2, the number of disruptions negatively predicts the level of transactions 
with low-identification stakeholders (! = -0.0033, p < 0.001). Thus Hypothesis 1 is 
supported. The analyses suggest that one additional murder decreases the number of 
applications by approximately 0.33 percent. To test Hypothesis 2, which proposes that 
the negative impact of disruptions on levels of transactions by low-identification 
stakeholders is more likely to be observed among organizations with high reputation, I 
split the sample into those schools who ranked in top 126 in the USNWR in a given year 
(Table 7, Models 3 and 4) and those who did not (Table 7, Models 5 and 6). As can be 
seen from Table 7, more reputable schools are more likely to experience a decline in the 
number of applications if a murder took place on their campus (! = -0.0021, p < 0.001) as 
opposed to less reputable schools (! = 0.0002, p > 0.10). To test whether the difference in 
coefficients is statistically significant, I interacted the decayed murder variable with the 
dummy variable of USNWR ranking. As can be seen from Table 7 Model 7, the 
interaction variable is negative and significant (! = -0.0181, p < 0.001, indicating that the 
effect of murders on the number of applications is more negative for ranked universities. 
Thus I find support for Hypothesis 2.  
 
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 The results of the test of Hypothesis 3 are reported in Table 8, Model 2. The 
analyses suggest that murders have a positive and significant effect on percentage of 
donating alumni (! = 0.0006, p < 0.001). Thus Hypothesis 3 is supported. The tests of 
Hypothesis 4 are reported in Table 8, Models 3-7. While the effect of murders on the 
percentage of alumni who donate to their alma mater is positive and significant for high-
 reputation schools (! = 0.0005, p < 0.001), it is not significant for not high-reputation 
schools (! = 0.0031, p > 0.10), providing preliminary support for Hypothesis 4. The test 
of the difference in coefficients is presented in Table 8 Model 7. The interaction 
coefficient of decayed murder and USNWR rank is not significant; suggesting that the 
effect of murders on ranked and not ranked schools does not significantly differ. These 
results indicate that if a high-reputation school experiences a murder, the percentage of 
alumni who will donate to the school next year will increase by approximately 0.05 
percent; a school with 300,000 alumni can expect 150 more alumni to donate in the year 
following the disruption. 
ROBUSTNESS  CHECKS 
Operationalization of Stakeholder Transactions 
The results of the presented empirical tests for Hypotheses 3 and 4 indicate that 
the percentage of alumni donating to universities after murder increases. To test whether 
the increased alumni participation is also associated with higher amount of funds donated 
by the alumni, I regressed the same set of predictor variables as those used to test 
Hypotheses 3 and 4 on the logged dollar amount of total alumni giving. The results of the 
tests are presented in Table 9. As can be seen from Table 9, dollar amount of alumni 
donation increases after a murder only in ranked universities, which provides further 
 
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 support for a buffering effect of organizational reputation in light of disruptions for 
reactions by high-identification stakeholders.  
The main alternative explanation to the reported findings is that applicants and 
alumni experience varying degrees of concern about on-campus murders. While 
applicants could interpret such disruption as a threat to future personal safety, alumni 
may not be as concerned about this issue. Besides, the use of a decayed measure of 
disruptions may reflect social memory about the disruption and may not accurately depict 
the effect of any specific disruption on stakeholder reactions. To ensure that the reported 
results remain robust to the alternative explanation and specification of the main 
independent variable, I conducted additional analyses with a different set of measures of 
the dependent variables. I investigated the effect of disruptions on the number of alumni 
donors who did not receive a degree from the university (stakeholders with low levels of 
organizational identification) and the number of alumni donors who received a degree 
from the university (stakeholders with high levels of organizational identification). The 
results of these analyses are presented in Tables 10-11. I used non-decayed measure of 
disruptions in the analyses mentioned above.  
As can be seen from Table 10, Model 2 the number of non-degree alumni donors 
decreases with an additional on-campus murder (! = -0.0953, p < 0.001). Models 4 and 6 
in Table 10 indicate that the increase occurs in both ranked and not ranked universities. 
However, as seen in Table 10, Model 7 the decrease in non-degree alumni donors is 
statistically higher in ranked universities (! = -0.1793, p < 0.001). These results provide 
further support for Hypotheses 1 and 2 and suggest that low-identification stakeholders 
withdraw support from organizations that experience disruptions and they do so more in 
 
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 highly reputable organizations. Thus, high reputation is a liability in light of disruptive 
events when the reactions under consideration are those by low-identification 
stakeholders. 
The results of the analyses predicting the number of alumni donors who received 
a graduate or undergraduate degree from the university (high-identification stakeholders) 
are presented in Table 11. The findings presented in Table 11, Model 2 are opposite of 
Hypothesis 3: the number of transactions by high-identification stakeholders decreases 
with the increase in disruptive events (! = -0.0552, p < 0.001). However, this decrease 
remains significant only for low-reputation organizations, and is not present among high-
 reputation organizations. As Model 7 in Table 11 shows, the difference in coefficients is 
statistically significant. These results suggest that reputation serves as a buffer in light of 
disruptive events when the reactions under consideration are those by high-identification 
stakeholders. 
Type of Disruption 
The type of disruption may also affect the results presented in this study. While I 
have shown that stakeholder reactions to a disruptive event depend on the organizational 
identification, it is also important to note that the essay focused on only one type of 
disruption: unexpected and random event, where the responsibility of the organization is 
low. It is, however, theoretically and practically important to investigate the effect of 
different disruptive events on reactions of stakeholders with high and low levels of 
organizational identification.  
I propose that classifying disruptive events by the degree of organizational 
responsibility (Coombs, 2007) and the type of the violation (Mishina et al., 2011) can 
 
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 provide further information on the differences of stakeholder reactions to disruptions and 
the variations in the role of organizational reputation. Specifically, prior research on 
disruptions has provided theoretical arguments for the amplifying role of organizational 
responsibility: the more responsible the organization is perceived to be, the higher the 
transactional penalties by organizational stakeholders (Coombs, 2007). Additionally, the 
type of the violation associated with the disruption may alter stakeholder reactions. 
Borrowing from Mishina and colleagues (Mishina et al., 2011) I propose that disruptions 
can vary in terms of violation of competency or violation of integrity. Competency 
violations are those disruptions that signal organizational inability to perform and provide 
quality products or services up to the expected standards. Integrity violations are those 
disruptions that signal discrepancies between organizational and stakeholder expected 
values and goals (Mishina et al., 2011).  
Figure 1 illustrates the typology of the disruptive events based on the level of 
organizational responsibility and the type of violation as well as the variables used in the 
context of this study to measure the four types of disruptions. I measure the first type of 
disruptions, competency violations with low levels of organizational responsibility as on-
 campus murders. The effect of this type of disruptions on reaction of the two stakeholder 
groups has been the focus of this study.  
NCAA rule violations. I measure the second type of disruptions, integrity 
violations with high levels of organizational responsibility, as the sum of legislative 
references used in the description of the NCAA major rules violated by a focal university 
in a given year. I obtained this information from the NCAA Legislative Services 
Database (https://web1.ncaa.org/LSDBi/exec/miSearch), which contains detailed 
 
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 descriptions of all NCAA rule infractions by member universities. NCAA rule violations 
represent integrity, rather than competency violations, because they break the goals and 
morals that guide conduct in this professional organization. Such violations also indicate 
high levels of organizational responsibility because the universities are aware of the 
NCAA rules and such violations are deliberate irresponsible actions taken by the 
organization.   
Fulmer Cup points. I measure the third type of disruptions, integrity violations 
with low levels of organizational responsibility as the number of Fulmer Cup points 
accumulated by a given university in a given year. Fulmer Cup is an ?award? given to a 
Division I NCAA football team for having the highest number of legal violations 
committed by the players on the roster of the team. The scoring system was started by a 
blogger Orson Swindle, on the blog ?Every Day Should Be Saturday? and was named 
after the University of Tennessee football coach, Phillip Fulmer, under whose leadership 
twenty football players were arrested for criminal activities 
(www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com). The Fulmer Cup scoring system includes such 
?rewards? as 4 points for rape or grand larceny, 3 points for car theft or assault, and 2 
points for drug possession or DUI charge 
(http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2006/02/24/fulmer-cup-scoring-further-
 clarification/). The Fulmer Cup points represent integrity violation because they are 
awarded for immoral and illegal activities contrary to the established goals of the 
organization. Additionally, such violations have a low level of organizational 
responsibility because individual organizational members commit such acts; they are not 
committed or sanctioned by the organization.  
 
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 Five-point drop in USNWR ranking.  I measure the fourth type of disruption, 
competency violation with high levels of organizational responsibility, as a five-point 
drop in university US News and World Report rankings.6 Drop in rankings represents 
competency violation because lower rankings are associated with organizational inability 
to deliver the value expected by its stakeholders. Such drops are largely a responsibility 
of the organization rather than random events that cannot be attributed to the 
organizational strategic choices.   
 Results of the robustness checks. To test whether the type of the disruption alters 
the results found in this study, I regressed the set of controls and each of the three 
additional measures of disruptions on the number of non-degreed and degreed alumni 
donors in a subsequent years. The results of the analyses are presented in Tables 12 and 
13. Models 1-6 in each table show the results of analyses conducted on a subsample of 
universities that are members of NCAA, because only NCAA members are at risk of 
violating NCAA rules and accumulating Fulmer Cup points. Models 7-9 in Tables 12 and 
13 show the results of analyses conducted on a subsample of universities that were 
ranked by the USNWR, as they are the only universities at risk of experiencing a drop in 
rankings.  
As can be seen from Table 12 and 13, Models 1-3, the effect of integrity 
violations with high levels of organizational responsibility, measure as the number of 
legislative references used in NCAA rule infractions, indicate that low-identification 
stakeholders decrease their support after such a disruption (! = -0.0092, p < 0.001) and 
the effect is marginally stronger for high-reputation organizations (! = -0.0022, p < 0.10); 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 6 I also used a three-point drop as a robustness check, the results with this alternative specification remain 
unchanged. 
 
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 high-identification stakeholders, on the other hand, increase their support (! = 0.0026, p 
< 0.001) especially in high-reputation organizations (! = 0.0081, p < 0.001). These 
results are similar to those found in this study. 
The picture is different for integrity violations with low levels of organizational 
responsibility. While both stakeholders with low and high levels of organizational 
identification increase their support to the organizations whose football players were 
involved in criminal activities (! = 0.0101, p < 0.001; ! = 0.0025, p < 0.001), such 
support is stronger among high-reputation universities from low-identification 
stakeholders (! = 0.0030, p < 0.001) and weaker among high-reputation universities from 
high-identification stakeholders (! = -0.0073, p < 0.001). These results suggest that after 
disruptions that involve integrity violations and low levels of organizational 
responsibility high reputation may serve as a buffer among low-identification 
stakeholders, and as a liability among high-identification stakeholders. 
Lastly, the effect of competency violation with high levels of organizational 
responsibility on stakeholder transactions is similar for both stakeholder groups. Both 
low- and high-identification stakeholders increase their support after a five-point drop in 
USNWR rankings, but the increased support is smaller among high-reputation 
universities. These results suggest that when the disruption under investigation is a 
competency violation with high levels of organizational responsibility high-reputation 
may be a liability regardless of the levels of organizational identification. I would caution 
to interpret the results of the robustness checks with care as they do not address issues of 
endogeneity of disruptions and are used to illustrate possible variations in the types of 
 
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 disruptions and changes in the role of reputation (buffer or liability) based on the type of 
disruption. 
DISCUSSION 
This essay makes two theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to research on 
organizational disruptions by addressing recent calls to investigate how the same types of 
negative events affect organizations in different ways (Jonsson et al., 2009). The findings 
of this study extend prior research that has examined how a firm?s reputation alters the 
magnitude of financial damage associated with disruptions (Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rhee & 
Haunschild, 2006). By examining how organizational identification impacts stakeholders? 
attitudes and behaviors toward the organization with which they identify, I developed 
theoretical arguments that explain why different stakeholders interpret the same negative 
event in different ways. The results indicate that low-identification stakeholders are more 
likely to withdraw transactions with an increase in the number of disruptions in an 
organization. This relationship is more likely to occur in highly reputable organizations. 
The results are opposite for transactions by high-identification stakeholders: they increase 
the number of transactions with highly reputable organizations, but not with low-
 reputation organizations. These findings suggest that stakeholders? reactions to 
organizational disruptions are not uniform, as has been assumed in previous studies on 
organizational disruptions.  
The second theoretical contribution of this paper is to research on organizational 
reputation. By relaxing the assumption that all stakeholders interpret the role of 
organizational reputation in light of disruptions in the same way, I investigated how the 
value derived from organizational reputation varies for stakeholders with high and low 
 
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 levels of organizational identification. I find that the ability of an organization?s 
reputation to provide a buffer from the negative impact of disruptions on the levels of 
stakeholder transactions depends on stakeholders? organizational identification. Focusing 
on organizational identification as a characteristic that affects the way stakeholders 
interpret the role of organizational reputation in light of disruptions allowed me to utilize 
research in psychology and social cognition to reconcile inconsistent findings in previous 
research. Specifically, in order to fully understand what role organizational reputation 
plays in light of disruptions and how it effects stakeholders? decision to transact with an 
organization, it is necessary to take into account the cognitive processes that affect the 
interpretation of the negative event and the type of relations a particular stakeholder 
group has with the organization (Rindova & Fombrun, 1999).  While high organizational 
reputation may increase expectations of stakeholders with low levels of organizational 
identification and decrease the number of transactions after the expectations have been 
violated by disruptions, it may also serve as a source of increased self-esteem through 
organizational identification thus increasing support by stakeholders with high levels of 
organizational identification.  
Contributions to Practice 
The findings of this study have several practical implications. Because levels of 
organizational identification are consequential for the value of organizational reputation 
derived by different stakeholder groups in light of organizational disruptions and for 
stakeholders? decisions regarding future transactions with organizations, managers may 
want to develop strategies to increase organizational identification among different 
stakeholder groups. To protect themselves from constituent penalties after negative 
 
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 events, highly reputable organizations may want to establish closer ties with their 
members and engage in strategies that increase stakeholders? organizational 
identification. One example of such strategies would be facilitation of establishment of 
fan clubs, similar to Ducati and Harley fans in the auto industry (Marchi, Giachetti, & de 
Gennaro, 2011; Prykop & Heitmann, 2006). Another way to increase organizational 
identification could be through sales of logoed merchandise, as organizational research 
suggests that external portrayal of belonging to a specific group increases internally 
established cognitive connection with the group (Cialdini et al., 1976). Such strategies 
may help organizations attenuate the negative financial impact of disruptions. 
In addition, the results of the study suggest that managers should be cognizant of 
reactions to organizational disruptions by different stakeholder groups when managing 
negative events and crisis-like situations. Although communicating with stakeholders 
during disruptions is a necessary strategy for successful recovery (Coombs, 2012; Pfarrer 
et al., 2008), impression management efforts should be balanced among different 
stakeholder groups and should take into account how stakeholders interpret the disruptive 
events and react to them. Carefully selecting the groups that have to be attended to 
following a disruption will inform the selection of media outlets for communicating with 
stakeholders and may help firms be more effective in managing social approval.  
Directions for Future Research 
This study generates questions that provide opportunities for fruitful 
investigations in the area of social approval assets. Specifically, while focusing on one 
industry allowed me to explicate firm-specific outcomes associated with disruptions, it is 
possible that the same disruptions are perceived differently in different industries. The 
 
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 nature of the products or services provided by firms in specific industries as well as the 
information available to stakeholders about the industry may lead to different dynamics 
in other settings (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994). Future studies are needed to explore the 
boundaries of generalizability of these findings to other contexts. 
Additionally, because I assumed that stakeholders with high and low levels of 
organizational identification are exposed to similar information about disruptive events, I 
have not examined the effects that media coverage of the event has on the two 
stakeholder groups. The surprising finding during reported robustness checks of an 
increase in the number of applications when organizations with low reputations 
experienced disruptions could be due to increased stakeholder awareness about the school 
associated with increased media coverage about the negative event. It is plausible that 
mentions of the school in the media make the name of the school more recognizable in 
the minds of the future applicants (Wagner, 2011). Additionally, it is possible that the 
way the media frame the disruptions will generate different interpretations and thus 
different decisions regarding future transactions (Jonsson & Buhr, 2011; Jonsson et al., 
2009). One could speculate that in the instances when the media reports blame the 
organization for the disruption, stakeholders with low levels of identification will be 
more likely to withdraw transactions, while in cases of lower levels of organizational 
responsibility for the disruption, the levels of withdrawal will be lower. Further, the 
effects of media coverage about the disruption on stakeholders with high levels of 
identification may lead to different dynamics than those found in this essay. Specifically, 
in light of high levels of negative coverage about the organization and its defamation in 
the public eye, this stakeholder group may decide to withdraw transactions from 
 
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 organizations after disruptions. Future research could delineate the effects of media 
coverage of the disruptive event on the decisions to transact by two different stakeholder 
groups. 
Further, the examinations of the effects of one type of disruption on stakeholders? 
decisions to transact provided a clean setting to test reactions of different stakeholder 
groups to the same negative event. While the typology of disruptions and the measures 
used to operationalize the proposed four types of disruptions can be improved, these 
results shed light on the intricacies of stakeholder reactions to disruptive events 
depending on their levels of organizational identification and the type of disruption under 
investigation. The findings presented in the study could be extended by focusing on the 
influence of various types of organizational disruptions in terms of their consequences for 
organizational stakeholders or their proximity to the emphasized attributes of 
organizational reputation. It is possible that regardless of whether the disruption 
represents an integrity or competency violation, if the consequences of the disruption are 
severe, the organization may be punished more by its stakeholders. For instance, such 
integrity violations as financial fraud arguably result in less severe consequences, 
stockholders? financial losses, than such competency violations as sale of defective 
products that may cause death of customers. It is also likely that disruptions in the area 
where an organization built a high reputation are more unexpected and salient and thus 
result in higher levels of transaction withdrawals than disruptions in the less emphasized 
areas. For instance, auto recalls by Toyota, a manufacturer known for high reliability of 
its vehicles, are more unexpected than similar recalls by Ford, which may result in higher 
levels of transactional losses for Toyota. Thus, alternative ways to classify disruptions is 
 
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 by the severity of consequences, rather than type of violation, and by their proximity to 
the well-known and highly emphasized aspects of organizational reputation. 
Lastly, while I theorized about organizational reputation as a perceptual construct, 
I measured reputation as a binary variable indicated whether an organization?s name was 
mentioned among organizational rankings in certification contests, which has been 
argued to reflect only one aspect of reputation?prominence (Lange et al., 2011; Mishina 
et al., 2010), leaving out the second aspect?perceived quality (Rindova et al., 2005). 
Whereas using a binary measure of reputation allowed me to investigate the dynamics 
between disruptions and stakeholder transaction for all organizations in the industry, not 
just the highly prominent ones, it is important for future research to investigate the role of 
perceived quality of organizations in light of disruptions and whether stakeholders? 
interpretation of disruptions vary based on this attribute. An interesting extension of the 
study would be to compare reactions of stakeholders with different levels of 
organizational identification to disruptions by firms with high prominence but different 
levels of perceived quality. 
Conclusion 
 This study provides a theoretical explanation for the inconsistent findings in the 
literature on the role of organizational reputation in light of organizational disruptions by 
considering the role of organizational identification among different stakeholder groups. 
The results support the hypotheses that high reputation exacerbates the negative impact of 
disruptions on the levels of transactions, when investigating how negative events affect 
stakeholders with low levels of organizational identification. The findings are the 
opposite for stakeholders with high levels of identification: this group of stakeholders 
 
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 engages in more transactions when a highly reputable organization with which they 
identify is involved in a disruptive event. Overall, the analyses presented in the paper 
suggest that organizational identification is a key construct that affects how stakeholders 
derive the value from organizational reputation and ultimately how they react to negative 
disruptive events in organizations with different reputation levels.  
 
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 TABLE 1 
Descriptive Statistics for the Full Sample 
 
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 TABLE 2 
Correlations for the Full Sample 
 
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 TABLE 3 
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to Predict Applications, Ranked Universities 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 TABLE 4 
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to Predict Applications, Non-Ranked Universities 
 
 
 
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 TABLE 5 
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to Predict Percentage of Donating Alumni, Ranked Universities 
 
 
 
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 TABLE 6 
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for a Subsample Used to Predict Percentage of Donating Alumni,  
Non-Ranked Universities 
 
 
 
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 TABLE 7 
Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of Applications 
 
 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
 
 
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TABLE 8  
Results of a Fixed-Effects OLS Regression Predicting Percentage of Donating Alumni  
 
 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
  
 
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TABLE 9  
Results of a Fixed - Effects OLS Regression Predicting Total Alumni Giving  
 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
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 TABLE 10 
Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of Alumni Donors without a Degree from the University 
 
 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
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 TABLE 11 
Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of Alumni Donors with a Degree from the University 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
 
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 TABLE 12  
Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of Alumni Donors without a Degree from the University 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
 
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 TABLE 13  
Results of a Fixed-Effects Poisson Regression Predicting Number of Alumni Donors with a Degree from the University 
 
+ p < 0.10,    * p < 0.05,  ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 
 
 
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 FIGURE 1 
Typology and Examples of Organizational Disruptions 
 
 
Low Level of 
Organizational 
Responsibility 
High Level of 
Organizational 
Responsibility  
Competency Violation  On-campus murder Drop in rankings 
Integrity Violation Fulmer Cup NCAA infractions 
 
 
 
 
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 CHAPTER 4: ESSAY 3 
REPUTATION AND MEDIA COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIVE EVENTS 
Abstract 
The purpose of this essay is to investigate the differences in the amount and the 
content of media coverage of negative disruptive events in low- and high-reputation 
organizations. The results of quantitative analysis conducted on a sample of 106 on-
 campus murders in U.S. universities indicate that disruptions in high-reputation 
organizations receive more news coverage. Further examination of news coverage of 
disruptions in four matched pairs of universities illustrates that the name of an 
organization is more likely to be mentioned in the title of the article and the victim is 
more likely to be portrayed positively in the coverage of disruptions in high-reputation 
organizations compared to low-reputation organizations. 
 
 
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 In Essay 2, I proposed and tested one possible explanation why organizational 
reputation may have benefits and why it may be a burden when an organization 
experiences a disruptive event. I argued and found that when studying reactions of 
stakeholders with low levels of organizational identification, reputation can be a burden, 
because social expectations about the conduct of high-reputation organizations are high. 
Thus, violations of social expectations are stronger when a disruptive event takes place in 
high-reputation organizations than in low-reputation organizations. For high-
 identification stakeholders, on the other hand, reputation can have its benefits, protecting 
the organization from transactional losses by this stakeholder group. I argued that this 
was due to higher levels of vicarious self-enhancement and personal prestige derived 
from affiliation with high-reputation organizations than with low-reputation 
organizations. I also argued that the reason for the buffering and amplifying effects of 
organizational reputation in light of disruptive events is due to increased attention of the 
news media to disruptions in high-reputation organizations. I have not, however, 
provided empirical evidence to support this claim.  
Prior organizational studies have provided empirical evidence that media 
coverage of organizations is consequential for organizational outcomes. Jonsson and 
Buhr, for instance, found that the number of negative articles published about fees in 
Swedish mutual funds industry was associated with a decrease in financial net flows to 
mutual funds with high fees (Jonsson & Buhr, 2011). In the context of an early U.S. auto 
industry, coverage of racing contests in the auto magazine The Horseless Age was 
associated with higher probability of survival of auto makers (Rao, 1994). Similarly, 
Pollock and Rindova investigated and found a legitimating effect of information provided 
 
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 in major newspapers, trade journals, and magazines on investors? behavior when 
evaluating IPO?s (Pollock & Rindova, 2003). Despite these and other studies on the role 
of media for organizational outcomes, there have been no empirical investigations about 
the role of organizational reputation for media coverage of disruptions (one exception is a 
study by Rhee & Haunschild, 2006 where the authors present theoretical arguments for 
such relationship).  
The purpose of this essay is to investigate the role organizational reputation for 
the choices of news media regarding which disruptions to cover and how to cover them, 
above and beyond the characteristics of disruptions themselves. I investigate this question 
on the sample of on-campus murders that took place in U.S. universities in 2001-2009, 
which was used in Essay 2. I specifically focus on the differences between the amount 
and content of news coverage of otherwise similar disruptions that took place in ranked 
vs. non-ranked universities. The empirical investigation of the difference in news 
coverage of ranked and non-ranked universities is thus focused on exploring the 
differences between organizations with different levels of the prominence aspect of 
reputation (Rindova et al., 2006).  
I conduct the investigation in two steps. First, I conduct a quantitative analysis 
investigating the role of organizational reputation for the amount of coverage of 
disruptions. The findings indicate that more severe disruptions, or murders with higher 
number of victims, are more likely to be covered in the news. The results also show that 
more egregious disruptions, or particularly cruel murders, are more likely to make it to 
the news. Lastly, and importantly for this Essay, disruptions in high-reputation 
organizations are more likely to be covered, even when controlling for the severity and 
 
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 egregiousness of the disruptions. Second, I conduct a more in-depth analysis of the news 
coverage, comparing the content of national news articles of similar murders that took 
place in high- vs. low-reputation universities. The results indicate that the name of the 
university is more likely to appear in the title of the article and the news coverage is more 
positive about the victims and more negative about the suspect when the reported 
disruptions took place in ranked vs. non-ranked universities.  
STUDY 1: AMOUNT OF NEWS COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIONS IN LOW- AND 
HIGH-REPUTATION ORGANIZATIONS 
 As found in Essay 2, organizational reputation amplifies withdrawal from 
transactions by low-identification stakeholders, or serves as a liability, and amplifies 
supportive actions from high-identification stakeholders, or serves as a buffer. I argued 
that this is due to increased coverage of disruptions in highly reputable organizations in 
news media. In this study I aim to test this claim empirically.  
Magnitude of the Disruptive Event 
Journalism research suggests that news media are more likely to report on stories 
with severe consequences. Disruptive events with more severe consequences are more 
unusual and salient and are thus more likely to be attended to by the audiences. For 
instance, Peterson argued that for a story to become news it has to reach a certain 
?threshold? or ?make a ?big enough splash?? for it to be newsworthy (Peterson, 1979: 
119). Similarly, when studying biases in media coverage of protests, McCarthy and co-
 authors found that one of the criteria for newsworthiness was how consequential the 
event was, or how big of an impact it made (McCarthy et al., 1996). Similar arguments 
have been recently applied to organizational context. For instance, a recent study found 
 
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 that the larger the number of recalled toys, which has a potential to affect more children, 
the lower the tenor of media coverage about the firm that was engaged in a recall 
(Zavyalova et al., 2012). Overall, disruptive events that are more consequential and have 
a higher chance to make it of the news. Thus, I hypothesize, 
Hypothesis 1: The higher the magnitude of the disruptive event the larger the 
news coverage of the event. 
Deviance of the Event 
 Besides the consequences of the disruptive event, the nature of the event affects 
the amount of coverage the event receives in the news media. Events more extraordinary, 
rare, and unusual in nature are more likely to become news (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). For 
instance, even though violent crimes constitute about 20 percent of official crime rate, 
about 70 percent of news about crimes cover violent crimes (Katz, 1987). Additionally, 
deviant events, or events that can be characterized with ?novelty, oddity, [or] 
unusualness? among other characteristics, influence how much the event is covered (Lee, 
2008). In similar vein, in their review of studies on selection criteria in the news, Gant 
and Dimmick found that novelty and oddity affect whether the event will be reported on 
(Gant & Dimmick, 2000). I apply similar reasoning to organizational context. Disruptive 
events in organizations that are particularly deviant, unusual, or odd, are more 
newsworthy and thus are more likely to be covered in the news. Thus I hypothesize: 
Hypothesis 2: The more deviant the disruptive event the larger the news coverage 
of the event. 
 
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 Organizational Reputation 
 Besides the characteristics of the event itself, the characteristics of the person or 
organizational involved in the event are consequential for the amount of coverage it 
receives. For the purpose of this dissertation, I specifically focus on the role of 
organizational reputation for the amount of coverage of disruptions in the news. I argue 
that disruptions in high-reputation organizations are more likely to make it to the news 
for two reasons. First, organizations with high reputation are more likely to be entities of 
high levels of identification among stakeholders (Bhattacharya et al., 1995; Kjaergaard et 
al., 2011; Mael & Ashforth, 1992), just like elite people are more readily available to 
serve as objects of identification (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). Additionally, notorious people, 
such as famous actors, are more likely to be covered in the news (McCarthy et al., 1996). 
Thus the news media are more likely to report on disruptions in high reputation 
organizations, as the audience is more likely to attend to such stories. Second, because 
high reputation connotes not just prominence of an organization, but also positive public 
perceptions about its ability to create value (Rindova et al., 2005), disruptive events in 
high-reputation organizations violate social expectations about organizational prior 
conduct. Such violations, in turn, are more likely to attract public?s attention due to their 
unexpectedness. Overall, all else being equal, disruptions in high reputation organizations 
are more newsworthy. Thus I hypothesize: 
Hypothesis 3: Holding characteristics of the event constant, disruptive events in 
high-reputation organizations receive a larger amount of news coverage than 
disruptive events in low-reputation organizations. 
 
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 DATA AND METHODS 
To test the hypotheses developed in this essay, I used the sample of 106 on-
 campus murders described in Essay 2. These data were collected from the Office of 
Postsecondary Educations. Among other statistics, this agency collects information on 
campus safety in U.S. universities, including murders. I needed to collect descriptive 
information about on-campus murders as well as the amount of news coverage each 
murder received. As I already had the information about which universities experienced 
murders in which years, to find out the exact date of each murder, I started an exploratory 
search in Lexis-Nexis database for the entire year when the murder took place. I used the 
following search terms for each murder: ?school name? AND ?kill*? OR ?murder*.? In 
the instances when a school name could be abbreviated (i.e. ?UVA? instead of 
?University of Virginia?) I used both terms with an ?OR? separator.  I also limited the 
subject of the search to ?murder? and ?manslaughter.? Lastly, I restricted the search to 
U.S. sources. If this search did not result in any articles, an undergraduate research 
assistant conducted online search to find information about murders. Of 106 murders that 
took place in U.S. universities, 86 received some news coverage. Table 1 contains 
descriptive information about each of the 86 murders. I used the information in the 
articles and online publications to find out the exact date of the murder and basic 
information about the circumstances under which the murder took place.  
Variables 
 Amount of news coverage. I measure the amount of new coverage about each 
murder as a number of a) articles published in top 50 national newspapers, b) articles 
published in local newspapers, and c) segments in TV shows dedicated to the event. I 
 
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 also summed all three variables in the analysis. To obtain this information, I used the date 
of the murder, obtained from the initial Lexis-Nexis search, and conducted three separate 
Lexis-Nexis searches, using the same search terms described above, in the following 
sources 1) top 50 U.S. newspapers 2) local newspapers published in the state where the 
university is located, and 3) TV news shows transcripts. Each search was limited to one 
year after the date of the murder. These searches resulted in 1,595 articles published in 
top 50 U.S. newspapers, 2,189 articles published in local newspapers, and 1,222 TV news 
show transcripts.  
 Under my supervision three trained undergraduate research assistants read every 
article from the original search results and kept only those articles that described the on-
 campus murders under investigation. For instance, some articles in the initial search 
described a murder that took place off-campus and the victim was taken to the university 
hospital. In other instances, an article described a university theatre production of a 
murder mystery. All such articles were deleted from subsequent analyses. After 
eliminating irrelevant articles from the initial search results, the final sample of articles 
used in the analyses was 745 articles in top 50 U.S. newspapers, 1,041 articles in local 
newspapers, and 735 TV news show transcripts. These variables were used to measure 
the amount of news coverage. 
 Magnitude of the disruptive event. The magnitude of the disruptive event was 
measured as a sum of all victims in the on-campus murder. This information was 
obtained from the Office of Postsecondary Education within the U.S. Department of 
Education (www2.ope.gov). 
 
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  Deviance of the disruptive event. To measure how unusual or deviant the 
disruptive event was, as well as to collect other descriptive information about each event, 
I read articles about the 86 murders for which some news coverage was found and 
created a binary variable equal to one if the murder was particularly egregious and zero 
otherwise. For instance, such murders as the one at the California State University ? 
Sacramento, where a student was beaten to death with a baseball bat or a murder at 
Western Kentucky University, where a student was raped, stabbed, and then lit on fire 
were coded as egregious. Four murders were coded as particularly egregious, two of 
which took place in ranked universities, and two?in a non-ranked universities. 
 Organizational reputation. I measure organizational reputation as a binary 
variable equal to one if a university was ranked by the USNWR in the year when a murder 
took place, and zero otherwise. I chose to dichotomize the variable because of my 
primary interest in the prominence of the organization?s name for the news coverage of 
disruptive events. Whereas universities with lower rank may be less prominent than 
universities with higher rank, the benefits of being ranked vs. not being ranked are more 
significant than being ranked lower than peers. This is because codification of 
organization?s standing relative to its peers in the rankings reports makes organizational 
name known to its stakeholders whereas the names of unranked organizations remain 
unknown. 
 Control variables. Using the information from the articles published about the 
murders, an undergraduate research assistant and I coded additional descriptive 
information about each event. I created the following categories about the murders: 1) 
victim?s occupation was coded as a binary variables equal to one if one of the victims 
 
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 was a student and zero otherwise, 2) victim?s age was coded as the average age of all 
victims of an incident. I also control for the number of murders that took place at a given 
school prior to the focal murder. This variable is left-censored as the information about 
past murders goes back only to year 2001. I also include year dummies in some models. 
The descriptive statistics and correlations among variables are presented in Table 2. 
DATA ANALYSIS 
Reputation and News Coverage of Disruptions 
To answer the first question proposed in the study, whether organizational 
reputation matters for media coverage of disruptions in organizations above and beyond 
the characteristics of the event, I used the descriptive information from Table 1 as well as 
the data on news coverage of the murders in national, local, and TV news. I regressed the 
binary variable of organizational reputation and combinations of the descriptive variables 
about the murder on each of the four measures of news coverage. The results of a Poisson 
regression are presented in Table 3.  
As can be seen from Table 3, murders with more victims were more likely to be 
covered in each news source independently as well as in all the news sources combined. 
This finding supports Hypothesis 1, which states that the higher the magnitude of the 
disruptive event, the more news coverage it receives. To test Hypothesis 2, which states 
that the more deviant the event, the more news overage it receives, I regressed the binary 
variable of egregious murders on each of the four dependent variables. Again, in all four 
cases the coefficient is positive and significant, which provides support for Hypothesis 2. 
Lastly, to test Hypothesis 3, which states that disruptive events in high-reputation 
organizations receive higher amount of news coverage than similar events in low-
 
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 reputation organizations, I included a dummy variable of organizational reputation. As 
can be seen from Table 3, murders in ranked universities are associated with higher 
amount of news coverage, even after controlling for the characteristics of the event 
itself.7  
The finding that disruptions in high-reputation organizations are more likely to be 
publicized, even after controlling for details of the event itself, is consistent with mass 
communications research discussed in Essay 2 and indicates that the magnitude of a 
disruption as well as its negativity contribute to the likelihood that it will be covered in 
the news (Katz, 1987; McCarthy et al., 1996; Peterson, 1979) . Higher news med ia?s 
attention to disruptions in high-reputation organizations provides empirical evidence to 
some organizational studies that only theorized about the liability of high reputation 
(Rhee & Haunschild, 2006) . Lower levels of attention to low-reputation organizations 
from news media suggest that having lower reputation and staying out of the media 
spotlight may be beneficial, when disruptive events take place in a low-reputation 
organization.  Although conducted on a small sample of disruptive events, the analyses 
shed some light on the reasons why the findings in Essay 2 are particularly likely to be 
seen in high-reputation organizations.  
STUDY 2: CONTENT OF NEWS COVERAGE OF DISRUPTIONS IN LOW -  
AND HIGH - REPUTATION ORGANIZATIONS  
In the previous section, I tested and found that disruptive events in high-
 reputation organizations receive more news coverage. This finding, however, does not 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 7 The 2007 shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute was a highly publicized event. To ensure that the 
results are not attributed mainly to this shooting, I conducted the same analyses without the Virginia Tech 
shooting in the sample. The results remained unchanged. 
 
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 explain how the news coverage of disruptive events varies between low- and high- 
reputation organizations. It is possible that the reason for the amplifying effect of 
organizational reputation in increase of support from high-identification stakeholders and 
decrease of support from low-identification stakeholders is not due only to the amount of 
news coverage of the event, but also to systematic differences in the content of coverage 
of events in low- vs. high-reputation organizations. 
In this section, I investigate whether there is a systematic difference in the content 
of coverage of otherwise similar disruptive events, on-campus murders, between low- 
and high-reputation organizations. I focus on the difference in coverage in national 
newspapers, rather than local newspapers, as local coverage may differ based on regional 
reporting norms, rather than on differences in the events covered.  
I started by using the descriptive information from Table 1 to find comparative 
cases. I read descriptions of all murders in ranked universities and looked for similar 
murders in a non-ranked university. I searched based on the circumstances of the murder, 
description of the victim, and type of murder (i.e. shooting, stabbing, etc.), and 
availability of articles published about the murder in top 50 national newspapers. First, of 
18 murders that took place in ranked universities in 2001-2009, three did not receive any 
coverage and five were not covered in top 50 national newspapers, these were eliminated 
from further consideration for comparative case studies. Second, I read articles describing 
the remaining eight murders. Having a description of the circumstances of the murders, I 
proceeded to read articles about murders in non-ranked universities that have similar 
circumstances. Four murders in ranked universities could be matched with similar 
murders in non-ranked universities. A 2007 murder of a University of Washington?
 
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 Seattle female employee was similar in circumstances with a 2002 murder of a female 
employee at Eckerd College. A 2007 murder at New York University that resulted from a 
dispute between a boyfriend and a girlfriend was similar to a murder at Fairleigh 
Dickinson University in 2002. A 2009 murder of a University of Connecticut football 
player was similar to a murder of a football player at the University of Memphis in 2007. 
Lastly, a gruesome murder of a graduate female student assistant at Yale in 2009 was 
similar to another gruesome murder at Western Kentucky University in 2003. These eight 
cases are used to compare the content of news coverage of murders in ranked vs. non-
 ranked universities. 
The eight cases were covered in 107 articles in national newspapers, which were 
used to analyze the content of national news coverage of the murders. Using the Weber 
protocol for content analysis (Weber, 1990) as recommended by Duriau et al. (Duriau, 
Reger, & Pfarrer, 2007), I  extracted statements in each article published about each of 
the eight cases in national newspapers according to the following categories, which 
emerged from the initial reading of the articles: 1) elements of the article?date an article 
was published, page of the article, article title; 2) elements of the crime?statement with 
description of the crime, statements describing the victim(s), statements describing the 
suspect(s), statements about the capture and punishment of the suspect; and 3) response 
from the school?actions taken by the school, statements from university officials. A 
trained undergraduate research assistant, who has experience in content analysis and 
currently works at a news station, copied the statements from each article and pasted 
them in a table according to these categories.  
 
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 I then carefully read and coded each element of the article in the table created by 
the assistant. Specifically, I assigned the content of each statement into more fine-grained 
categories. For instance, the initial category ?title of the article? was coded by two 
variables: whether the title contains such words as ?murder,? ?death,? or ?slaughter? and 
whether the name of the school appears in the title. The initial category ?actions taken by 
the school? was broken into more fine-grained categories of types of actions, such as 
improved lighting, provision of counseling services, sending out e-mail alerts, etc. 
Similar fine-grained coding was conducted for all elements in all articles. If statements 
that belong to any category were used in the article, such category was coded as one and 
zero otherwise. Consistent with a grounded theorizing approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), 
I added additional categories if new statements could not be assigned to existing 
categories. The initial categories as well as the final list of corresponding fine-grained 
categories that emerged from the coding of the content are listed in Table 4. The final 
summary coding of the news media coverage about the eight comparative case murders is 
presented in Table 5.  
Comparing the content of articles published in national newspapers about the four 
pairs of cases, I found three similarities that are worth noting. First, as I found in the first 
section of the essay, similar murders in ranked schools receive more news coverage. 
Even in the cases where the circumstances of the murders were similar, ranked 
universities received more coverage. Second, with an exception of the fourth pair, where 
the victims were not students, the name of the ranked university is more likely to appear 
in the title of the article than the name of a non-ranked university. Third, with an 
exception of the fourth pair, the stories about victims in ranked universities presented 
 
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 more in-depth personalization of the victims and contained more positive statements 
about the victims than in non-ranked universities. These findings provide further 
explanation for the amplifying effect of organizational reputation found in Essay 2. 
Specifically, not only is organizational reputation associated with higher amount of news 
coverage about disruptions, but it also increases the chances that the name of the 
organization will be mentioned in the headlines and provides the base for more in-depth 
stories about disruptions, including more positive portrayal of the victims. This might 
suggest that the positive reputation of the university generalizes to the organization?s 
students, coloring the media?s portrayal of the events.  However, by focusing on the 
positive characteristics of the victims at high reputation organizations, audiences may 
view the disruption more negatively in high-reputation organizations than in low-
 reputation organizations. The findings of Study 2, while admittedly exploratory, suggest 
that in addition to the differences in the amount of news coverage of disruptions in low- 
vs. high-reputation organizations, the content of news coverage of disruptions differs as 
well. This finding suggests that not only do high-reputation organizations receive more 
coverage when they experience disruptions, but their names are more salient in the news.  
DISCUSSION 
 In this essay I aimed to shed light on the mechanisms behind the amplifying effect 
of organizational reputation for withdrawal from transactions by low-identification 
stakeholders after disruptions and increase in transactions by high-identification 
stakeholders after disruptions. While I theorized in Essay 2 that the mechanism behind 
this finding could be attributed to the differences in news coverage about disruptions in 
low- vs. high-reputation organizations, in this essay I tested the prediction empirically. 
 
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 The findings of a quantitative study suggest that even after controlling for the 
characteristics of the event, disruptions in high-reputation organizations receive more 
news coverage. Further comparison of eight cases revealed similar patterns, both in terms 
of quantity of coverage and content of coverage.  On-campus murders in ranked 
universities receive more news coverage than otherwise comparable on-campus murders 
in non-ranked universities. Additionally, the name of the university is more likely to be 
mentioned in the title of the article for ranked universities, and the victim is more likely 
to be portrayed positively, which provides further explanation for the amplifying role of 
organizational reputation during disruptive events. 
 Whereas this study sheds light on the reasons why high reputation may be a 
burden to organizations during disruptions, it has a number of limitations which should 
be addressed in the future. First, future studies should use larger samples to examine the 
differences in news coverage of disruptions in low- and high-reputation organizations. 
Second, I have not taken into account organizational responses after disruptions. It is 
possible that impression management and crisis management tactics used by 
organizations immediately after disruptions affect the amount of news coverage and its 
content. Lastly, future research should investigate how stakeholders? attribution of 
responsibility varies for similar disruptions in low- vs. high-reputation organizations and 
whether these dynamics affect news coverage of negative disruptive events. It may be 
that disruptions in high-reputation organizations invite more discourse among 
stakeholders from both sides: those accusing the organization of being irresponsible and 
those defending the organization (Brooks, Highhouse, Russell, & Mohr, 2003). These 
 
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 differences in guilt attribution, in turn, may affe ct the amount of news coverage of 
disruptions.  
 
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 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 
 In this three-essay dissertation I examined the role of social approval bestowed on 
organizations for stakeholders? reactions to negative disruptive events in organizations. 
While organ izational researchers have been increasingly interested in the role of social 
approval assets, such as organizational reputation, and their role in light of organizational 
crises and wrongdoing, the findings have been limited and, at times, inconsistent. I 
contribute to this research by examining how stakeholder reactions to negative 
disruptions vary based on prior levels of media reputation and the level of organizational 
reputation, organizational identification, and type of disruption. 
Theoretical Contributions 
 The first theoretical contribution of the dissertation is in building on research on 
the role of media reputation of organizations that have not taken into account the 
differences in positive and negative emotions for decision making, which manifested 
itself in the use of an empirical measure that combines the two types of emotions into one 
measure, the JF coefficient (Deephouse, 2000; Pfarrer et al., 2010; Pollock & Rindova, 
2003) . I address this issue by examining the role of amount as well as positive and 
negative tenor of news coverage of organizations and the corresponding role of 
stakeholder familiarity with organizations and emotions evoked by the name of the 
organization. I develop a more nuanced typology of organizations generated through 
media coverage? celebrity, infamous, peripheral, and unfamiliar. Relying on research in 
social psychology, I develop theoretical arguments that provide an explanation why 
reactions of stakeholders to disruptive events are not uniform, but rather dependent on 
emotional responses evoked by the name of the organization. I argue that stakeholders? 
 
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 interpretation of disruptive events in an organization depend on these emotional 
responses. The developed propositions suggest that staying away from the spotlight (i.e. 
being unfamiliar) may provide a buffer during disruptions.  
 The second contribution of the dissertation is in finding a potential resolution to 
the inconsistent findings of buffering or exacerbating effects of organizational reputation. 
While some studies provided empirical evidence to suggest that high levels of social 
approval and reputation provide a stock of social capital and thus buffer organizations 
from negative reactions after disruptive events (Love & Kraatz, 2009; Pfarrer et al., 2010; 
Schnietz & Epstein, 2005), others argued and found that high reputation might be a 
liability as it increases social expectations about appropriate conduct by highly reputable 
organizations (Rhee & Haunschild, 2006). I argue that these inconsistencies are partly 
due to the different levels of organizational identification among stakeholders. While for 
stakeholders with low levels of organizational identification high reputation may be a 
source of elevated expectations, for stakeholders with high levels of organizational 
identification high reputation is a source of vicarious self-enhancement and increased 
self-esteem (Dutton et al., 1994; Fuller et al., 2006). This, in turn, affects stakeholder 
reactions to disruptions in organizations. I test developed hypotheses in the context of on-
 campus murders in U.S. universities in 2001-2009. The results indicate that disruptions 
are associated with fewer transactions by low-identification stakeholders and only highly 
reputable organizations experience this effect. The findings are opposite for high-
 identification stakeholders: this group increases levels of transactions with highly 
reputable organizations after disruptions.  
 The third contribution of the study is in the developed typology of organizational 
 
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 disruptions based on the level of organizational responsibility and the type of violation 
associated with the disruption?integrity vs. character. While I do not explicate 
theoretical differences in stakeholder reactions to the selected four types of disruptions, I 
suspect that a more promising typology of disruptions is not in the type of violation, but 
the severity of the consequences resulting from the violations. 
 The fourth contribution of the dissertation is in testing empirically the mechanism 
through which organizational reputation amplifies stakeholder reactions to disruptive 
events. While I argued in Essay 2 that disruptions in highly reputable organizations are 
more likely to make it to the news, in Essay 3 I provide empirical evidence to support this 
argument. The analysis suggests that, even after controlling for the characteristics of the 
event itself, disruptions in highly reputable organizations receive more coverage. This 
finding was supported further in the detailed analyses of news coverage of four matched 
pairs of otherwise similar murders. Additional finding of this study was that the names of 
high-reputation organizations are more likely to appear in the article title, which provides 
another explanation for the amplifying effect of organizational reputation. 
 Taken together, this three-essay dissertation contributes to research on the role of 
social approval assets, such as media reputation and organizational reputation, during 
negative disruptive events in organizations. The key argument of the dissertation is that 
this role is more nuanced than previously thought. Stakeholder reactions to disruptive 
events depend on their familiarity with the organization and emotional responses shaped 
by the amount and emotional tenor of news coverage of organizations prior to 
disruptions. Interpretation of the news about disruptions and the value derived from high 
reputation, in turn, depend on the levels of organizational identification. These findings 
 
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 open a new and exciting venue for future organizational studies on the role of social 
approval assets during negative disruptions. 
Directions for Future Research 
I hope that this dissertation opens new and promising research opportunities in the 
area of social approval assets during disruptions. First, whereas in Essay 1 I focused on 
extreme values and one-sided types of media reputation?celebrity and infamous 
organizations?I did not develop more complex forms of organizations, those 
organizations that may experience relatively equal amounts of positive and negative 
publicity. Nor did I explain how interpretations of news coverage that generates these 
organizational types changes depending on stakeholders? organizational identification. 
For instance, organizational celebrity may be formed by large amount of positive 
publicity; however, some stakeholders may dislike such organizations and have high 
levels of disidentification, defining themselves as non-members of a celebrity 
organization. Reactions of these stakeholders to disruptions, in turn, will depend on how 
big of a role organizational disidentification plays in their presentation of selves in social 
interactions. 
Second, another promising extension of this dissertation is in exploring how 
stakeholder reactions to disruptions in organizations may be affected by the type of the 
disruptive event. I have presented a typology of disruptive events in Essay 2 and 
suggested that disruptions may be categorized in terms of the level of organizational 
responsibility and the type of violations (competency vs. integrity). While this typology 
was not the main focus of the dissertation it may shed further light on the inconsistent 
findings about the role of organizational reputation during disruptions. Yet I have not 
 
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 explored the underlying theoretical mechanisms that may explain variations in 
stakeholder reactions to different types of disruptions. I have also not taken into account 
the interplay between the type of violation associated with a disruption and the severity of 
consequences resulting from the violation. It may be that the type of violation is less 
indicative of how stakeholders react to disruptions relative to the severity of its 
consequences. It is possible that highly negative stakeholder reactions depend on whether 
the disruption was intentional and which type of violation it represented. For instance, 
product recalls can be considered competency violations, and if they result in deaths of 
customers the perceived severity of the disruption is much higher than if it is an integrity 
violation, as in a case of white collar crime, which results in financial losses, arguably a 
less severe consequence. I would encourage future studies to investigate the importance 
of the interplay between the type of disruption, level of organizational responsibility, and 
the consequences associated with the disruption for the ability of social approval assets to 
buffer an organization from negative stakeholder reactions. 
 Third, more in-depth studies on larger samples that investigate reactions to 
disruptive events by low- and high-identification stakeholders are needed to understand 
the role of organizational reputation for stakeholders? reactions. While I focused on the 
differences in the amount and content of news coverage of disruptions in low- vs. high-
 reputation organizations, I did not explore the differences in sensemaking that occurs 
among stakeholders with different levels of organizational identification with low- and 
high-reputation organizations. It is possible that high reputation may generate both, 
stakeholder accounts that blame the organization for the disruption and accounts that 
justify the disruption, whereas low-reputation organizations may not have such variance 
 
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 in stakeholder reactions and interpretations. These interpretations, in turn, may affect the 
probability and the type of responsive actions taken by the organization after the 
disruptive event. To fully understand the dynamics that take place between the 
organization, the media, and stakeholders after disruptive events, future studies should 
examine the interdependencies between organizational identification, organizational 
reputation, news coverage of disruptive events, stakeholder interpretation of disruptions, 
and organizational responses to disruptions.
 
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 in stakeholder reactions and interpretations. These interpretations, in turn, may affect the 
probability and the type of responsive actions taken by the organization after the 
disruptive event. To fully understand the dynamics that take place between the 
organization, the media, and stakeholders after disruptive events, future studies should 
examine the interdependencies between organizational identification, organizational 
reputation, news coverage of disruptive events, stakeholder interpretation of disruptions, 
and organizational responses to disruptions.
 
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 TABLE 1  
Description of On - Campus Murders  
 
 
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 TABLE 1 continued  
 
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 TABLE 1 continued 
 
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 TABLE 1 continued  
 
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 TABLE 1 continued  
 
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 TABLE 1 continued  
 
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 TABLE 1 continued  
 
 
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 TABLE 2 
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations 
 
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 TABLE 3  
Results of a Poisson Regression Predicting Amount of News Coverage  
 
 
 
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 TABLE 4  
Categories Used to Code Content of Articles about the Selected Cases  
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 TABLE 5 
Summary of Article Content on the Selected Murder Cases 
 
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