When telling the truth isn’t enough: How organizational stability paltering creates misleading impressions of financial viability

Deception in marketing communications is often associated with false claims and outright misrepresentation. However, consumers may also be misled by truthful communications that encourage inaccurate inferences. The current research introduces the concept of organizational stability paltering, defined as the use of truthful communications and selective omission to create misleading impressions of an organization’s long-term financial viability. Our theoretical development distinguishes organizational stability paltering from related theories (deception by implication, selective disclosure and misleading omission, signaling theory, impression management, and paltering). We report the results of an archival qualitative analysis of bankruptcy court records and archived promotional materials from 15 Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection between 2020 and 2025. Bankruptcy documents were used to reconstruct periods during which management was aware of severe financial distress, and these timelines were systematically compared with contemporaneous marketing communications. We found communication patterns consistent with organizational stability paltering based on continued messages emphasizing refundable contracts, continuum-of-care guarantees, awards, testimonials, regulatory standing, and other signals of stability despite underlying financial vulnerability. Our findings suggest that evaluating marketing deception requires considering not only factual accuracy but also the consumer inferences communications are likely to encourage.