Historical Narratives and the Defense of Stigmatized Industries

Andrew Smith,Ian Jones,Diego M Coraiola,Anders Ravn Sørensen,Nicholas D Wong

doi:10.1177/10564926211019481

Abstract

This study examines how managers and entrepreneurs in stigmatized industries use historical narratives to combat stigma. We examine two industries, the private military contractors (PMC) industry in the United States and the cannabis industry in Canada. In recent decades, the representatives of these industries have worked to reduce the level of stigmatization faced by the industries. We show that historical narratives were used rhetorically by the representatives of both industries. In both cases, these historical narratives were targeted at just one subset of the population. Our research contributes to debates about stigmatization in ideologically diverse societies, an important issue that have been overlooked by the existing literature on stigmatized industries, which tends to assume the existence of homogeneous audiences when researching the efforts of industry representatives to destigmatize their industries.

Highlights

The existing research on stigmatized industries (Barlow et al, 2018; Hampel & Tracey, 2017; Slade Shantz et al, 2019) has improved our understanding of how the representatives of such industries combat stigma
We argue that the representatives of stigmatized industries take ideological diversity into consideration when crafting the historical narratives they use as part of their efforts to destigmatize industries
The present can be viewed as an era of stigma instability that offers both risks and potential rewards for managers

Summary

Introduction

The existing research on stigmatized industries (Barlow et al, 2018; Hampel & Tracey, 2017; Slade Shantz et al, 2019) has improved our understanding of how the representatives of such industries combat stigma. We argue that the representatives of stigmatized industries take ideological diversity into consideration when crafting the historical narratives they use as part of their efforts to destigmatize industries. The representatives of the Canadian cannabis industry made extensive use of historical narratives in their efforts to reduce the level of stigmatization faced by their industry, as did the representatives of the PMC industry. The representatives of the U.S PMC industry produce historical narratives that are congruent with the historical metanarratives that conservatives in the United States use to understand the world. The representatives of the Canadian cannabis industry produced historical narratives that are congruent with the historical metanarratives that liberals in Canada use to understand the world as the political strategy of the cannabis industry required left-wing Canadians to come to support cannabis legalization. We conclude by discussing boundary conditions, the limitations of this study, and directions for future research

Literature Review

Methodology and Selection of Case Studies

Summary of Findings

Conclusion

Findings

Limitations