The Stigmatization and Devaluation of Elites Associated with Corporate Failures: A Process Model

We develop a model to explain the process by which corporate failure leads to professional devaluation of individual elites. We envision that corporate failure evokes a stigmatization process, in which society's arbiters engage in constituent minded sensemaking to interpret the conditions surrounding the failure, including the characteristics of the individual elite, and arrive at judgments about the person's blameworthiness. We discuss implications of this research for the study of stigma and stigmatization, as well as “settling-up” in managerial labor markets.