Scapegoating in the Organization: Which Regulation Modes?

Several studies have focused on scapegoating in the organizational context. However, most have tended to enclose the protagonists in predefined roles: scapegoats are relatively passive, their colleagues persecute them, and management quickly join the persecutors. According to this scenario, the outcome ends irrevocably with the scapegoat's isolation. The literatures in related fields have nevertheless suggested other modes of regulation, and we might question whether our representation of the organizational scapegoating process, from passive actors to automatic outcome, offers a full account of this complex phenomenon as it unfolds and is lived. We in fact do not know how organizational actors regulate the scapegoating process, interfering with and influencing its trajectory and outcome. In this article, we conceptualize this complex process by examining the active and regulating roles of its protagonists and how they hinder or even avert the violence of scapegoating. In an exploratory and qualitative study of seven cases of scapegoating in a large French company, we describe the actions of the scapegoats (combating the persecution, struggling against stigma, avoidance, and departure) and management (support for persecutors, support for the scapegoat, and ambivalent support). The articulation of the protagonists' actions ultimately leads to four types of resolution for the scapegoat: isolation, expulsion, cohabitation, and assimilation. Two modes of regulation emerge: the first mode strengthens and catalyzes the scapegoating process, whereas the second mode prevents and channels it. By detailing the actors' actions and their capacities to co-regulate the scapegoating process, this study moves beyond a deterministic vision of scapegoating and underlines the role of its protagonists. A research agenda is discussed.