Not All Events Are Attended Equally: Toward a Middle-Range Theory of Industry Attention to External Events

Abstract

This paper builds on prior theory and research on attention and identity to examine whether and how industries publicly attend to external events. Events are critical triggers of institutional transformation and industry evolution. Yet, they must first become the focus of public attention to have this effect. We draw on a paired case comparison of media coverage of eight non-routine events affecting the natural environment and the U.S. chemical industry. We employ both deductive and inductive analysis to develop a model and hypotheses to explain two research questions. First, what determines the initial public attention to an event? Second, when and why do certain events attain high and sustained levels of industry attention? A key inference is that whether an event receives industry level attention depends on either outsiders holding the industry accountable for the event, or insiders' internal concerns with the industry image. We further infer that an event can be transformed into a critical issue for an industry, warranting sustained attention, if there is contestation with outsiders over the accountability for the event and its enactment and internal contradictions and challenges to the industry's identity.

Collective Frames of Wrongdoing During Emergency: The Dilution of the Care Facilities’ Contagion Scandal in Italy During the COVID-19 Emergency

“…Studies of the 2008 financial crisis (Moggia, 2021; Riaz, 2009; Riaz et al, 2011) also find that accused parties used the fragmented and intertwined nature of financial systems as a strategy, allowing a constant shifting between the dual position of victim and perpetrator, such that people in risk management pointed the finger at regulators and banks’ management, bankers accused regulators and financial investors, and mortgage organizations blamed consumers and the system in general. However, while we show that insiders’ strategies could play a mediating role in the understanding of a publicly disruptive and controversial event, we did not find evidence of the decisive role documented in previous studies (Coombs, 2021; Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Patriotta et al, 2011). We cannot say if this is because our case study documented defensive instead of active response strategies or because we adopted a more dynamic and inclusive multi-stakeholder perspective on collective framing than previous studies.…”

Collective Frames of Wrongdoing During Emergency: The Dilution of the Care Facilities’ Contagion Scandal in Italy During the COVID-19 Emergency

“…Studies of the 2008 financial crisis (Moggia, 2021; Riaz, 2009; Riaz et al, 2011) also find that accused parties used the fragmented and intertwined nature of financial systems as a strategy, allowing a constant shifting between the dual position of victim and perpetrator, such that people in risk management pointed the finger at regulators and banks’ management, bankers accused regulators and financial investors, and mortgage organizations blamed consumers and the system in general. However, while we show that insiders’ strategies could play a mediating role in the understanding of a publicly disruptive and controversial event, we did not find evidence of the decisive role documented in previous studies (Coombs, 2021; Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Patriotta et al, 2011). We cannot say if this is because our case study documented defensive instead of active response strategies or because we adopted a more dynamic and inclusive multi-stakeholder perspective on collective framing than previous studies.…”

The effects of stakeholder power, strategic posture and slack financial resources on sustainability performance in UK higher education institutions

“…These findings are consistent with prior related studies in for-profit firms that also show that internal structures, for example, the establishment of a chief sustainability officer (Peters and Romi, 2015; Kanashiro and Rivera, 2019; Fu et al , 2020), lead to better sustainability performance. Our findings are also consistent with the attention-based view (Ocasio, 1997, 2011; Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001; Klettner et al , 2014) that suggests that internal structures serve to continuously focus management attention on sustainability issues that require urgency and ensuring that sustainability issues are more institutionalised in the HEI.…”

Governance from below: contesting corporate environmentalism in Durban, South Africa

“…This study confi rms the work of others that events or key defi ning moments signifi cantly impact institutional change and organizational behaviour (Hoffman, 1999;Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001). Here events can be seen as acting like lightning rods for a cross-scale institutionalization process where global norms are diffused down to the local level and environmental rights and health based concerns percolate up to the national and global level.…”

Collective Frames of Wrongdoing During Emergency: The Dilution of the Care Facilities’ Contagion Scandal in Italy During the COVID-19 Emergency

“…Studies of the 2008 financial crisis (Moggia, 2021; Riaz, 2009; Riaz et al, 2011) also find that accused parties used the fragmented and intertwined nature of financial systems as a strategy, allowing a constant shifting between the dual position of victim and perpetrator, such that people in risk management pointed the finger at regulators and banks’ management, bankers accused regulators and financial investors, and mortgage organizations blamed consumers and the system in general. However, while we show that insiders’ strategies could play a mediating role in the understanding of a publicly disruptive and controversial event, we did not find evidence of the decisive role documented in previous studies (Coombs, 2021; Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Patriotta et al, 2011). We cannot say if this is because our case study documented defensive instead of active response strategies or because we adopted a more dynamic and inclusive multi-stakeholder perspective on collective framing than previous studies.…”

The effects of stakeholder power, strategic posture and slack financial resources on sustainability performance in UK higher education institutions

“…These findings are consistent with prior related studies in for-profit firms that also show that internal structures, for example, the establishment of a chief sustainability officer (Peters and Romi, 2015; Kanashiro and Rivera, 2019; Fu et al , 2020), lead to better sustainability performance. Our findings are also consistent with the attention-based view (Ocasio, 1997, 2011; Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001; Klettner et al , 2014) that suggests that internal structures serve to continuously focus management attention on sustainability issues that require urgency and ensuring that sustainability issues are more institutionalised in the HEI.…”

Governance from below: contesting corporate environmentalism in Durban, South Africa

“…This study confi rms the work of others that events or key defi ning moments signifi cantly impact institutional change and organizational behaviour (Hoffman, 1999;Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001). Here events can be seen as acting like lightning rods for a cross-scale institutionalization process where global norms are diffused down to the local level and environmental rights and health based concerns percolate up to the national and global level.…”

Collective Frames of Wrongdoing During Emergency: The Dilution of the Care Facilities’ Contagion Scandal in Italy During the COVID-19 Emergency

“…Studies of the 2008 financial crisis (Moggia, 2021; Riaz, 2009; Riaz et al, 2011) also find that accused parties used the fragmented and intertwined nature of financial systems as a strategy, allowing a constant shifting between the dual position of victim and perpetrator, such that people in risk management pointed the finger at regulators and banks’ management, bankers accused regulators and financial investors, and mortgage organizations blamed consumers and the system in general. However, while we show that insiders’ strategies could play a mediating role in the understanding of a publicly disruptive and controversial event, we did not find evidence of the decisive role documented in previous studies (Coombs, 2021; Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Patriotta et al, 2011). We cannot say if this is because our case study documented defensive instead of active response strategies or because we adopted a more dynamic and inclusive multi-stakeholder perspective on collective framing than previous studies.…”

The effects of stakeholder power, strategic posture and slack financial resources on sustainability performance in UK higher education institutions

“…These findings are consistent with prior related studies in for-profit firms that also show that internal structures, for example, the establishment of a chief sustainability officer (Peters and Romi, 2015; Kanashiro and Rivera, 2019; Fu et al , 2020), lead to better sustainability performance. Our findings are also consistent with the attention-based view (Ocasio, 1997, 2011; Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001; Klettner et al , 2014) that suggests that internal structures serve to continuously focus management attention on sustainability issues that require urgency and ensuring that sustainability issues are more institutionalised in the HEI.…”

Governance from below: contesting corporate environmentalism in Durban, South Africa

“…This study confi rms the work of others that events or key defi ning moments signifi cantly impact institutional change and organizational behaviour (Hoffman, 1999;Hoffman and Ocasio, 2001). Here events can be seen as acting like lightning rods for a cross-scale institutionalization process where global norms are diffused down to the local level and environmental rights and health based concerns percolate up to the national and global level.…”