IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT STRATEGY OF COPING WITH ENTREPRENEURIAL FAILURE STIGMA: A TWO-PATH THEORETICAL MODEL

Impression management strategy is an important way to cope with the stigma of failed entrepreneurial firms. However, most existing studies only focused on the process of impression management with a single strategy. Few studies have provided a systematic theoretical explanation on how to use different types of impression management strategies to cope with stigma. To fill this theoretical gap, a two-path model of impression management of entrepreneurial failure stigma was constructed, based on the two-component model of impression management. In addition, the mechanism of impression management strategy selection for failed entrepreneurial firms to cope with stigma was discussed. The findings of the theoretical model reveal two paths for the stigma management strategy of failed entrepreneurial firms: “avoidance motivation → defensive strategy of impression management” and “diluted motivation → acquisitive strategy of impression management.” Moreover, in the selection mechanism of strategy, the formation of impression motivation is affected by the stigma type of entrepreneurial failure, the social status of the firm organization, and the degree of stigma threat. In the face of justifiable stigma, the failed entrepreneurial firms form the avoidance motivation and then implement a defensive strategy of impression management. High social status firms adopt an acquisitive strategy of impression management to cope with the negative impact of entrepreneurial failure stigma. As the threat level of entrepreneurial failure stigma increases, the dilution motivation of the failed entrepreneurial firms to stigma becomes stronger, and the firms are more likely to adopt the acquisitive strategy of impression management. The two-path theoretical model provides decision support for failed entrepreneurial firms to formulate stigma management strategies and expands the research scope of entrepreneurial failure stigma.

Self-Disclosure and Non-Communication: Stigma Management in Third-Sector Transitional Employment

People who are recovering from a mental illness often have difficulties finding and maintaining employment. One of the main reasons for these difficulties is the negative label, or stigma, attached to mental illnesses. People who possess stigmatizing characteristics may use compensatory stigma management strategies to reduce discrimination. Due to mental illnesses’ invisible characteristics, information control is an important stigma management strategy. People can often choose whether they disclose or non-communicate their illness. Nevertheless, it might be difficult to decide when and to whom to disclose or non-communicate the stigma. Since stigma management is a dilemmatic process, workers in mental health services play an important role in informing their clients of when it is best to disclose or non-communicate their illness. In this article, we adopt the perspective of discursive social psychology to investigate how workers of one mental health service programme evaluate and construct self-disclosure and non-communication as stigma management strategies. We demonstrate how these workers recommend non-communication and formulate strict stipulations for self-disclosure. At the same time, they differentiate non-communication from lying or providing false information. The study contributes to an improved understanding of stigma management in contemporary mental health services.

Resurrecting and Appending Identities: The Role of Nonprofits in Managing Stigmatized Identity

Homelessness is an issue that impacts more than half a million people in the United States every day. Nonprofits are often on the front lines of efforts to aid individuals without homes. In this study, we focus on an area underexplored in the nonprofit literature, stigma, to explore the nonprofit’s role as a critical catalyst in managing stigma within and among client beneficiaries. Based on our interpretive analysis of interviews and observations of the nonprofit Running for Change (RFC), we delineate how RFC created conditions under which beneficiaries without homes could resurrect former identities and append new identities for themselves as part of the stigma management process. Our work carries implications for prior research on nonprofit organizing related to constituent participation and beneficiary empowerment and opens up new pathways for nonprofit partitioners to think about the agentic capacities of beneficiaries.

Qualified to be deviant: stigma-management strategies among Chinese leftover women

This paper highlights the intersection of gender, sexuality and class in shaping the ways in which ‘leftover’ women navigate legal and social discrimination. ‘Leftover women’ is a stigmatising term in China that refers to women who do not get married by the time they reach their late twenties. Based on my fieldwork in China with queer and heterosexual ‘leftover’ women, I introduce two strategies of stigma management: ‘buying a licence to be deviant’ and ‘identity-hopping’. The former is a strategy adopted by heterosexual women with financial resources and a desire frequently expressed by queer women. ‘Buying a licence to be deviant’ refers to the strategy of accumulating sufficient financial resources to justify one's choice to be deviant and deal with the legal consequences of the evasion of the population policies. ‘Identity-hopping’ is popular among those with a lower social and financial status, who use the law's labelling function to hop from one stigmatised identity to another as a way to deal with stigma. From an intersectional lens, this paper advances law and society's study of stigma and discrimination by emphasising the hierarchy of stigmatised identities and the strategy of using the law's power of labelling identities to hop from one identity to another. It also demonstrates how the intersection of gender, sexuality and class complicates the ways in which leftover women understand and engage with the law.

Mental health stigma on campus: the promotion of mental wellbeing to Ryerson students

This MRP looks at the communication used in mental health campaigns for a post-secondary student audience, focusing on how language use and visual design choices impact the stigma associated with mental health. This MRP focuses specifically on the communications seen on Ryerson University’s campus in the 2016 – 2017 academic school year. A video available on Ryerson’s YouTube channel and a sample of posters available throughout campus were analyzed for language and visual design choices to determine how they fit within stigma management communication strategies and how those choices had the potential to influence perceived stigma in viewers." Goffman’s (1963) theory on stigma and an individual’s identity was used to analyze the content of the video and posters. Goffman’s theory outlines the various stages of stigma that an individual experiences, and the impact of each stage on how that individual chooses to interact with others. Miesenbach’s (2010) model for stigma management communication, along with information from an expert interview with a front-line worker will also be used to analyze content in the video and posters. By understanding the communications around mental health through the lens of Goffman (1963) and Miesenbach (2010), it will be possible to understand how the communications are increasing or reducing the stigma around mental health. The analysis of the rhetoric in the messages gives a hint as to how our culture reflects stigma in the messages created, and how this rhetoric may affect students in a culture. This research analyzes Ryerson’s mental well-being campaign for the purpose of identifying a list of best practices for communicating about mental health. The findings show that one of the campaigns accomplishes this better than the other. Effective mental well-being campaigns are those that incorporate elements that normalize discussion of mental health topics, offer strategies for dealing with mental health concerns and overall, promote a culture that prioritizes mental well-being.

Mental health stigma on campus: the promotion of mental wellbeing to Ryerson students

This MRP looks at the communication used in mental health campaigns for a post-secondary student audience, focusing on how language use and visual design choices impact the stigma associated with mental health. This MRP focuses specifically on the communications seen on Ryerson University’s campus in the 2016 – 2017 academic school year. A video available on Ryerson’s YouTube channel and a sample of posters available throughout campus were analyzed for language and visual design choices to determine how they fit within stigma management communication strategies and how those choices had the potential to influence perceived stigma in viewers." Goffman’s (1963) theory on stigma and an individual’s identity was used to analyze the content of the video and posters. Goffman’s theory outlines the various stages of stigma that an individual experiences, and the impact of each stage on how that individual chooses to interact with others. Miesenbach’s (2010) model for stigma management communication, along with information from an expert interview with a front-line worker will also be used to analyze content in the video and posters. By understanding the communications around mental health through the lens of Goffman (1963) and Miesenbach (2010), it will be possible to understand how the communications are increasing or reducing the stigma around mental health. The analysis of the rhetoric in the messages gives a hint as to how our culture reflects stigma in the messages created, and how this rhetoric may affect students in a culture. This research analyzes Ryerson’s mental well-being campaign for the purpose of identifying a list of best practices for communicating about mental health. The findings show that one of the campaigns accomplishes this better than the other. Effective mental well-being campaigns are those that incorporate elements that normalize discussion of mental health topics, offer strategies for dealing with mental health concerns and overall, promote a culture that prioritizes mental well-being.

Nieprzypadkowy specjalista resocjalizacji – empowerment w akademickim procesie edukacji

The purpose of the article is to emphasise the importance of the concept of empowerment in the process of individual understanding of the category of resources by the students of social rehabilitation, in the context of “creative potentials”, “life orientation”, with confrontation with persons who are marginalised, excluded, under social pressure, by stimulating their defensive abilities, capability to take a risk of stigma management, creating constructive social independence and a new quality of life. The subject of descriptive literature analysis, however, is a reflection on the shape of non-obvious social rehabilitation students’ competence in terms of their professional functioning in the area of inclusion/exclusion. The indicated dimensions of the issue determine a starting point for a pedagogical confrontation with real day-to-day influences in the contemporary academic area as well as in the context of social rehabilitation practice. The conducted analysis indicates the need to elaborate a concept of the subject which would enable future pedagogues to have a look at the “Others”, not only through the prism of their own understanding, but above all in the dialectic perspective of becoming the subject.