Why are some diversified market identities problematic but others are not? We examine this question in the context of high-status corporate law firms, which often diversify into one low-status area of work—family law (FL)—but face a barrier (strong disapproval from existing clients) that prevents diversification into another such area—plaintiffs’ personal injury law (PIL). Drawing on a qualitative study of the Boston legal market, we argue that this barrier reflects a situation where loyalty norms have been violated, and it surfaces because service to individual plaintiffs is tantamount to betraying the interests of corporate clients. Our analysis clarifies identity-based limits to diversification, indicating that they are rooted in concerns about the firm’s commitments as well as its capabilities, and suggests a more general refinement of theory on status and conformity.

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Betrayal as Market Barrier: Identity-Based Limits to Diversification among High-Status Corporate Law Firms1

Extant research in organizational and economic sociology posits that organizations derive status from their prior demonstrations of quality, as well as their affiliations with high-status alters. Yet there are also indications that organizations may acquire status by virtue of their membership in salient social categories that are themselves status valued. In this article, the author explicitly theorizes and measure the concept of categorical status among organizations and test whether it influences the evaluation of organizational actions. More concretely, she develops a measure of industry status and test whether it affects the market reaction to U.S. firms announcing earnings restatements between 2000 and 2009. Results of the empirical analyses indicate that investors react less negatively to earnings restatements announced by firms from higher-status industries, supporting the argument that category status acts as a lens that shapes the extent to which an organization’s actions are viewed favorably.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675385

Categories and organizational status: : the role of industry status in the response to organizational deviance

Despite the importance that the media has in regard to influencing people’s perceptions of wrongdoing, organizational scholars have paid little attention to how the media reports wrongdoing. This article starts to address this gap by considering how the media frames corporate scandals. We empirically examine how four different German newspapers reported on the Volkswagen diesel scandal. We inductively identify the constitutive elements of a general corporate scandal frame. Then, we analyze how each newspaper framed the scandal through combinations of different elements. We identify from our dataset four frames of corporate scandals that newspapers applied: legalistic, contextual, reputational, and scapegoating. Our article testifies to the importance of cross-fertilization between research on mass communication and political science on one side, and organizational research on the other side and, more generally, it calls for more attention to be given to the media in the study of scandals and organizationa...

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How Does the Media Frame Corporate Scandals? The Case of German Newspapers and the Volkswagen Diesel Scandal

This article explores the mechanisms by which corporate prestige produces distorted legal outcomes. Drawing on social psychological theories of status, we suggest that prestige influences audience ...

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Order in the Court: How Firm Status and Reputation Shape the Outcomes of Employment Discrimination Suits

Proteus mirabilis is a major cause of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), emphasizing that novel strategies for targeting this bacterium are needed. Potential targets are P. mirabilis surface-associated swarming motility and the propensity of these bacteria to form biofilms that may lead to catheter blockage. We previously showed that the addition of cranberry powder (CP) to lysogeny broth (LB) medium resulted in impaired P. mirabilis swarming motility over short time periods (up to 16 h). Herein, we significantly expanded on those findings by exploring (i) the effects of cranberry derivatives on biofilm formation of P. mirabilis, (ii) whether swarming inhibition occurred transiently or over longer periods more relevant to real infections (∼3 days), (iii) whether swarming was also blocked by commercially available cranberry juices, (iv) whether CP or cranberry juices exhibited effects under natural urine conditions, and (v) the effects of cranberry on medium pH, which is an indirect indicator of urease activity. At short time scales (24 h), CP and commercially available pure cranberry juice impaired swarming motility and repelled actively swarming bacteria in LB medium. Over longer time periods more representative of infections (∼3 days), the capacity of the cranberry material to impair swarming diminished and bacteria would start to migrate across the surface, albeit by exhibiting a different motility phenotype to the regular "bull's-eye" swarming phenotype of P. mirabilis. This bacterium did not swarm on urine agar or LB agar supplemented with urea, suggesting that any potential application of anti-swarming compounds may be better suited to settings external to the urine environment. Anti-swarming effects were confounded by the ability of cranberry products to enhance biofilm formation in both LB and urine conditions. These findings provide key insights into the long-term strategy of targeting P. mirabilis CAUTIs.

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Cranberry derivatives enhance biofilm formation and transiently impair swarming motility of the uropathogen Proteus mirabilis HI4320

The colonial map of the Americas during the seventeenth century was ever-changing. Near-constant warfare meant that colonies could change hands several times in a matter of decades, and that European settlers could at any time find themselves under “new management”. A takeover posed a potential threat to the colonists’ way of life, but the newcomers could be faced with a potentially hostile population as well. Differences in religion, language, political practice, as well as the question of loyalty could all pose serious obstacles for a good relationship between the new rulers and the old colonial population. This article addresses this issue from the perspective of the settlers. Taking the colony of Suriname as the main case, and by comparing it to other colonies such as Brazil and New Netherland, I conclude that most settlers were content to stay, with exceptions due to pressures by governments or incompatible religious differences.

Should We Stay or Should We Go?: Being on Opposing Sides after a Colonial Takeover

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Tom Weterings

Papers

Should We Stay or Should We Go?: Being on Opposing Sides after a Colonial Takeover

Juan Rodriguez and the Beginnings of New York City