Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Corporate Reputation Review Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41299-026-00261-w

This article examines how organizations respond to reputational scandals in sponsorship relationships within the fields of art and sport. While sponsorship has been widely explored as a means of building legitimacy, less attention has been given to how legitimacy is actively renegotiated when reputational crises occur. Drawing on stakeholder theory and institutional logics, we investigate how organizations justify either continuing or severing controversial sponsorship ties through strategies grounded in compliance or conformity. Using a comparative case study design and secondary data, we analyse four high-profile scandals involving either discredited sponsors or tainted recipients. The findings reveal that responses are shaped by field-specific reputational dynamics rather than by a simple binary logic. In symbolically rich domains such as the arts, organizations tend to invoke conformity-based arguments aligned with moral and cultural expectations; in performance-driven or lower-visibility sports, compliance-based justifications linked to legality and contractual obligations dominate. Hybrid responses also emerge, influenced by elite stakeholder pressure, media attention, and internal governance considerations. By linking symbolic capital, field structures, and stakeholder salience to sponsorship decision-making, this study contributes to research on corporate reputation, organizational legitimacy, and sponsorship ethics, offering insights for managers facing reputational threats in complex institutional environments.

Nordic Psychology p. 1-25 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/19012276.2026.2669054

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study examines the relationship between social and economic leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships and career success, and how these two types of LMX relationships affect career success from a lifespan perspective. The results from a dyadic field study with 196 employees and their leaders showed that social LMX predicted subjective career success, while economic LMX predicted employee objective career success rated by leaders. A learning goal orientation (LGO) moderated the relationship between social LMX and subjective career success, such that the relationship was stronger for employees with a strong LGO. Finally, the findings partially supported a three-way interaction. For younger employees, economical LMX had a negative impact on subjective career success for employees with a strong LGO. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Production planning & control (Print) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2026.2657441

Routledge

Krutt Forlag