Stigma management within and between levels

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/joms.13168

We respond to recent calls to connect our understanding of stigma across and between levels of analysis by investigating how stigma management strategies to the same stigma vary and relate in nested industry, organizational, and individual actors. Drawing on data collected from 61 interviews with various workers in the coal industry in Australia, we find evidence of commonalities across individual, organizational, and industry stigma management strategies as well as substantial distinctions. Furthermore, we find evidence of cross-level influence efforts that aim to increase the probability that specific tactics will be more likely adopted or effective. While individual, organizational, and industry actors can all be ‘labelled’ by the same stigmatization, the present study is, to our knowledge, the first that explores whether and how actors at different levels manage the same stigma.