“Mistakes were made”: Organizations, apologia, and crises of social legitimacy

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Abstract
Organizations charged with wrongdoing often face social legitimacy crises and subsequently issue apologiae. Whether the charge is rooted in incompetence, as was Exxon's after the Alaskan oil spill, or a policy choice viewed to be irresponsible, as in the case of Domino's Pizza after a series of fatal automobile accidents, corporate apologists seek to purify their damaged images through a negative strategy of dissociation and a positive strategy of corrective action and reaffirmation of public values. This generic analysis suggests that corporate apologia warrants a distinct line of research due to the significant'differences that distinguish itffbm individualist conceptions of apologia.