Image spoiling" occurs when an organization uses words or other symbols to attack another organization's image. The most common form of image destruction is "inter-organizational defamation". With the intensification of market competition, the defamation behavior between organizations has become a means of unfair competition. Based on Grounded Theory, from the perspective of organizational impression management, this study clarifies the types of inter-organizational defamation risk through 1307 defamation cases published by "China Referee Instrument Network" between 2013 and 2018. The research results show that, first, inter-organizational defamation is divided into three categories: vilification, product disparagement and out-casting. Second, different types of defamation have differences motivations. Third, defamation between organizations has difference by regions and industries. The conclusion of this paper is helpful to understand the unfair competition situation of defamation between organizations, and enriches the research of impression management after different types of negative events under the same situation.

Jie Yang, Yudan Wang. An study of the type of interorganizational defamation risk based on Grounded Theory——an analysis from the Chinese scenario. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2019), Vol. 1, Issue 1: 75-88. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2019.010108.

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