Abstract
How can organizations capitalize on core stigma through spectacles? In this paper, we adopt a performativity perspective to address this question. Specifically, we analyze how an assemblage of different actors within and around an organization contributes to the spectacularization of stigma and thus brings a new reality into being. In this new reality, rather than stigma being concealed, it is normalized, and the organization capitalizes on it to enhance success. We focus on RuPaul’s Drag Race as a stigmatized organization that has built its success through the active spectacularization of its core stigma. In our analyses, we identify three mechanisms (i.e., reiteration of transgressions, awakening of social consciousness, and language modeling) the organization strategically uses to spectacularize the transgressions associated with the social deviance of drag queens. Through these mechanisms, a new reality around the stigma of drag queens is constructed and stigma is normalized. Overall, we contribute to a better understanding of how organizations can capitalize on their core stigma through spectacularization; we also explore the role of audiences in co-creating organizational realities around stigma.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1950-1986 |
| Number of pages | 37 |
| Journal | Journal of Management Studies |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 17 Jun 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Earlier versions of this manuscript benefited from the comments of Nicola Dragonetti, Stephanie Feiereisen, Marta Gasparin, Paco Giuliani, Tapiwa Seremani, and our colleagues at University of Bristol, University of Glasgow, Goldsmiths, and IESEG, and the participants to the JMS Workshop at IESEG in 2019, AOM 2020, the MRS Pride Seminar in 2020, and the seminar at UCL in 2021. This paper has been such a beautiful journey for us, and we need to thank several people who have been with us over time. Alessandro Caliandro and Astrid Van den Bossche for their crucial help with data scraping. Louis Batut and Lucas Cebral for their help as research assistants. Francesca Van Grop for her excellent work as copy editor. Thomas Roulet, the three anonymous reviewers, and the whole editorial team of this Special Issue, who allowed us to transform many ideas that are so close to our hearts into a paper that makes us so happy. And, finally, our ‘precious’ friends who saw the paper being born, during our retreat in Spain 2019, and Antonio Corso for suggesting a crucial book.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.