Abstract
This article explores the discourse of nonprofit wrongdoing through a thematic analysis of over 450 texts, including media coverage and organizational responses, surrounding four cases of nonprofit wrongdoing. These cases include theft, mismanagement of funds, lying about 9/11, and administering unintentional yet lethal doses of medication. The findings extend prior work on organizational rhetoric and propose the notion of granted utility – an assumed foundational view of the usefulness and underlying benefit of nonprofit organizations – as key for understanding nonprofit rhetoric. The findings suggest that recognizing granted utility allows organizations to focus on answering responsibility-focused questions of organizational legitimacy while maintaining utility-focused messages that reinforce granted utility when wrongdoing occurs.
Few aspects of American society are as poorly understood or as obscured by mythology as the thousands of day-care centers, clinics, hospitals, higher education institutions, civic action groups, advocacy organizations, museums, symphonies, and related organizations that comprise America’s private, nonprofit sector (Salamon, 2012, p. 9).
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are an integral component of society. As of 2016, approximately 1.54 million U.S. NPOs were registered with the Internal Revenue Service (NCCS, 2020). In 2017, nearly a quarter of all U.S. adults volunteered with nonprofits, providing approximately $195 billion of value (NCCS, 2020). Currently, NPOs fill needs across a vast spectrum of issues, engaging in purposes including “religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational” (IRS, 2016).
Nonprofit organizations are typically defined by their mission to benefit society. NPOs in the United States serve “the public good, as opposed to a private interest” and exhibit a number of unique characteristics (IRS, 2016; Salamon, 2012). Specifically, NPOs are distinctive in their adherence to monetary regulations such as the non-distribution constraint, which prohibits NPOs from distributing profits to owners or shareholders (Hansmann, 1980). Instead, NPOs direct their profits into their organizational missions, and thus benefit society in numerous ways. To name only a few, nonprofits raise funds for critical medical research, gather food for the needy, grant wishes for ill children, provide shelter and counseling, and offer medical care and education. In sum, NPOs are an integral, beneficial, and distinctive component of society.
However, even organizations designed to do good sometimes do wrong instead. Nonprofit research indicates that NPOs facing charges of wrongdoing, by virtue of their distinctiveness, may be “more susceptible than other types of organizations to public disillusionment” (Gibelman & Gelman, 2004, p. 377). Multiple studies have examined the rhetoric surrounding for-profit/corporate wrongdoing and crisis (e.g., Benoit, 1995; Coombs, 2006; Hearit, 1995). As Hearit (1995) argued, “corporations charged with wrongdoing often face social legitimation crises” (p. 3). And while one might expect nonprofit organizations facing situations of wrongdoing to be questioned as well, deep explorations of this issue are few and far between (Meisenbach & McMillan, 2006).
Consequently, communication scholars have encouraged additional examination of the nonprofit sector (e.g., Lewis, 2005; Koschmann, 2012) and called for the exploration of nonprofit organizational rhetoric (Meisenbach & McMillan, 2006). When nonprofit wrongdoing happens, this contradicts public expectations regarding NPOs. As a result, nonprofit organizations provide an entry point for examining organizational wrongdoing when the very structure of the organization has created expectations that the organization will do good. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the discourse surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing through a variety of cases. In doing so, this study uncovers a new conceptual foundation, granted utility, through an examination of media coverage and organizational responses within four cases representing common NPO types and distinct types of wrongdoing. The next section examines the theoretical foundations that undergird the study.
Theoretical Foundations
Definitions of and Bases for Legitimacy
The concept of organizational legitimacy has been examined in several contexts including sociology (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975) and organizational rhetoric (Boyd, 2004; Hearit, 1995). One early definition asserted that organizational legitimacy can be assessed through an examination of values and norms as indicated through the “writings and communication of a society at a point in time” (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975, p. 125), and that organizations that are more publicly visible or that “depend more heavily on social and political support” will rely on legitimacy more than others (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975, p. 133). Important later work offered additional perspectives. First, organizational legitimacy extends beyond the organizational level to a consideration of individual organizational issues (Coombs, 1992). From this perspective, legitimacy must be established for “the issues, its manager, and the proposed policy” in order for community support of an organization’s position to occur (Meisenbach & McMillan, 2006. p. 115). Second, it is created and shaped by context (Hearit, 1995). Specifically, corporate social legitimacy theory dictates that organizations “exist in a state of dependency upon their environments” and that legitimacy for organizations “functions as an organizational resource” (Hearit, 1995, p. 2). Further, definitions of legitimacy “emphasize the degree of congruence between social values and an organization’s actions” (p. 115).
In addition to work focused on defining institutional legitimacy and the important role of organizational context, scholars have considered a subset of the topic focused on the legitimacy of specific organizational actions. This notion of actional legitimacy concerns gaining approval for individual organizational actions or policies at a “microlevel of analysis,” rather than through a consideration of the larger organization or institution (Boyd, 2000, p. 348). In comparison to work considering legitimacy as part of a larger pattern of crisis management (Coombs, 1992), actional legitimacy focuses on the time period before or during decision making when invested groups can still impact corporate decisions and policy. In this sense, actional legitimation is proactive rather than reactive. Thus, actional legitimacy is “not simply a new name for small crisis management” but instead encompasses a broader range of potential corporate actions outside the scope of crisis or wrongdoing (Boyd, 2000, p. 349). Actional legitimacy also highlights the nuanced nature of legitimacy. Instead of a binary view of an organization as legitimate or not, actional legitimacy argues for a focus on more nuanced situations and contexts.
Scholars have also proposed that legitimacy is composed of several components. When viewed in a legal context, two main bases for determining corporate legitimacy have been proposed: utility and responsibility (Hurst, 1970). Utility refers to the belief that an organization must provide some service or good for society other than simply existing. In essence, it must be useful. Responsibility refers to the “requirement that institutional power be accountable to judgement by someone other than the power holders” (Hurst, 1970, p. 1704). In this view, utility and responsibility serve as “legitimizers” and a way for government to confer legitimacy to corporations.
In contrast to this process of government legitimation, rhetorical scholars have considered ways that publics confer legitimacy to organizations. For these scholars, two similar criteria for maintaining organizational legitimacy have been identified: competence and community or social sanction. In this view, competence refers to “organizational effectiveness – the ability of a corporation to ‘deliver the goods’ …[to] meet socially constructed standards of quality and desirability … [and] demonstrate utility” (Hearit, 1995, p. 2, emphasis added). The second criterion for legitimacy, community or social sanction, incorporates the idea that legitimacy requires the approval or disapproval of a community. This community or social sanction criterion proposes that organizations’ actions “must be ethically defensible … must demonstrate responsibility, create trust, and be legal” (Hearit, 1995, p. 3, emphasis added). Additionally, for organizations to receive social sanction and thus be considered legitimate, they must “act, or at least speak, in a responsible manner that warrants public acceptance and acquiescence” (Hearit, 1995, p. 3).
Clear connections can be seen between the components of legitimacy purported in each of these two contexts. First, both views assert a component of legitimacy focused on a belief that the organization provides a benefit for society – demonstrating utility or competence. Second, both views assert a component of legitimacy focused on the judgment of the organization’s actions by a group outside of it – demonstrating responsibility and receiving community or social sanction. Overall, these arguments highlight the rhetorical confirmation of utility and responsibility as central aspects of organizational legitimacy (Meisenbach & McMillan, 2006).
Intersections of Legitimacy, Communication, and Nonprofit Research
Sample Foundational Case Studies in Organizational Apologia/Crisis Communication.
aIndicates Nonprofit Organization (both examples are member-based, “mutual benefit” organizations).
In contrast to this situation, the honoring of competence and community is exactly the essence of nonprofit organizations. Their existence is premised on public concerns as the sole organizational mission. For nonprofit organizations, stakeholders (community members, clients, beneficiaries of services, etc.) and their version of shareholders/stockholders (i.e., the board members and employees) have the same interest and purpose. In other words, the competence/utility component of legitimacy and the community/responsibility component of legitimacy are not competing but are, rather, complementary at a foundational level. Hearit’s discussion, focused solely on for-profit organizations, omits the possibility of organizations who by their very design are not guided by the need to make profits for shareholders. In this regard, nonprofit organizations function in fundamentally different ways from the corporate/for-profit organizations about which Hearit initially theorized.
Thus, one defining characteristic of NPOs of importance in this discussion is that their social legitimacy rests solely on their service to society and the complementary nature of the utility/competence and responsibility/community aspects of legitimacy. As Salamon (2012) stated, “nonprofit organizations play a vital role in creating and sustaining what scholars have come to refer to as ‘social capital’” (p. 23). This notion of the nonprofit sector providing an avenue for building social capital and for providing a benefit to society is foundational for understanding the sector 1 . Thus, the social legitimacy concerns of NPOs are important to explore.
In response to this concern and others, many communication scholars have called for a move toward research grounded in and theorizing specifically on the nonprofit context (Koschmann, 2012; Lewis, 2005; Meisenbach & McMillan, 2006), and research has already begun responding to these calls. For example, McKeever and colleagues have explored organization public relationships in times of normalcy/non crisis between nonprofits and stakeholders (Pressgrove & McKeever, 2016), aspects of viral communication phenomena with nonprofits (Pressgrove, et al., 2016), and aspects of public’s perceived support of nonprofit fundraising (McKeever, 2013). Also in the realm of public relations, Waters and colleagues have also provided multiple studies examining nonprofit organizations’ increasing use of technology and internet-based communication (e.g., Waters, et al., 2009; Lovejoy, et al., 2012; Saxton, et al., 2015) during times of normalcy.
Other prior research has explored communicating change in nonprofit organizations (Lewis, et al., 2001, 2003), communication about careers in nonprofit setting (Smith, et al., 2006), “organizational narcissism” exhibited in an Indian nongovernmental organization (Ganesh, 2003), occupational identity for nonprofit fundraisers (Meisenbach, et al., 2019), and marginalized communities served by nonprofit organizations (Elers, et al., 2021). Recently, a special issue of Management Communication Quarterly explored nonprofit and voluntary organizations (NPVOs) including topics such as nonprofit engagement scholarship, the glorification of unpaid and underpaid labor in NVPOs, and future areas of focus for nonprofit organizational communication (for overview see Peterson & McNamee, 2021). In critical rhetorical work, Clair and Anderson (2013) examined nonprofit promotional material as rhetorical statements and critiqued the portrayal of the poor as “enterprising subjects,” arguing that nonprofit organizations occupy an “often take-for-granted acceptance and place” in society and demonstrate the power of grounding in organizational texts as a method of discovery (p. 558). These various studies, while focused on specific aspects of NPOs, do not extend to nonprofits experiencing wrongdoing or questions of legitimacy.
In contrast, a few studies have examined nonprofit organizations and aspects of legitimacy during times of normalcy. One examination of a South African fire protection association considered how a nonprofit builds legitimacy with government stakeholders (Wiggill, 2014). Another study used a critical feminist framework to explore building legitimacy in organizational website content for a U.S.-based international aid nonprofit (Gill & Wells, 2014). These studies pushed the focus on nonprofit communication and legitimacy to the forefront but did not extend their examination into situations complicated by wrongdoing.
A few studies, however, have considered this aspect of legitimacy. Long (2016) examined the Red Cross Society of China during a time of crisis, arguing that NPOs need to actively build legitimacy during times of normalcy. Fussell Sisco and colleagues (see Fussell Sisco, 2012a, 2012b; Fussell Sisco, et al., 2010) have considered numerous aspects of nonprofit communication, including crisis responses, using Coombs’ (2006) situational crisis communication theory. In recent work, Maier and Crist (2017) focused on one type of egregious wrongdoing in their examination of the Roman Catholic church sexual-abuse scandal. They argued for a new form of crisis—“wicked crisis”—which encompasses crises that are “intractable and threatening” as well as “chronic and seemingly immune to constructive response” (p. 164, 168). While important in extending apologia research, this work did not specifically focus on more common types of nonprofit wrongdoing. When viewed together, these studies demonstrate the importance of examining questions of nonprofit legitimacy from various communicative perspectives and extending the bounds of this work.
Finally, some research in scholarly nonprofit literature has focused on discussion of “scandals” (e.g., Bekkers, 2003; Gibelman & Gelman, 2004). An extensive analysis of worldwide media coverage of NGO scandals revealed six main categories for scandals in U.S. nonprofits: theft, mismanagement of resources, misconduct, excessive compensation, personal lifestyle enhancement, and sexual misconduct (Gibelman & Gelman, 2004). The authors also noted organizational reactions (e.g., imprisonment, fine, guilty plea) to these issues, taking a managerial perspective. While this research provided a static list of nonprofit scandals and the categories into which they fall, it did not offer an analysis of how the allegations of wrongdoing within the NPOs were constructed within the public sphere.
This project, then, extends extant research by drawing on existing scholarship in nonprofit literature, organizational rhetoric, and organizational legitimacy to explore discourses surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing. The guiding research question for this project is: RQ1: How are questions of legitimacy addressed in situations concerning allegations of nonprofit wrongdoing?
This project contributes to existing scholarship by focusing on issues of theoretical importance in the nonprofit context and not simply using an organization’s nonprofit status as a peripheral characteristic (Lewis, 2005). Further, this research adds to previous scholarship by examining organizational social legitimacy and wrongdoing in an applied context where the organization’s standing is arguably a foundation for its existence.
Methods
Selection of Organizations and Texts
Within the nonprofit sector, types of organizations vary widely. Nonprofits cover a range of forms with 501(c)(3) nonprofits “account[ing] for just over three-quarters of the revenue and expenses for the nonprofit sector as a whole” (NCCS, 2020). One avenue for understanding NPOs is Hansmann’s (1980) categorization of the four standard types (donative mutual, donative entrepreneurial, commercial mutual, and commercial entrepreneurial), based on combinations of the type of financing the organization receives and its type of governance structure. First, Hansmann (1980) identified two financial structure types: (1) donative, “nonprofits that receive most or all of their income in the form of grants or donations,” and (2) commercial, “those nonprofits that … receive the bulk of their income from prices charged for their services” (pp. 840–841). Hansmann then identified two typical NPO governance structures: (1) mutual, “nonprofits that are controlled by their patrons,” and (2) entrepreneurial, “nonprofits that are largely free from the exercise of formal control by their patrons” (pp. 841–842). While many NPOs may not fit exclusively into only one of the four categories, examples of nonprofit organizations often reside primarily in one category.
In this research, I have selected four cases of nonprofit wrongdoing based on four criteria. The cases are (1) from 501(c)(3) organizations; (2) representative of Hansmann’s (1980) four basic types of NPOs; (3) chosen to represent a variety of subsectors within the nonprofit field (i.e., health, education, etc.); and (4) based on the two most common types nonprofit wrongdoing, theft and mismanagement of funds (Gibelman & Gelman, 2004), and two complementary types of wrongdoing. Cases were also selected with an eye toward recency and availability of texts during the data collection period from 2006 to 2008, as well as the existence of local or broader news coverage of the wrongdoing in broadcast and print media.
Though recency was a consideration at the time of case selection and data collection, the cases are now from over a decade ago, providing a unique benefit to this project. By virtue of examining cases from years past and collecting texts at the time of the wrongdoing, this analysis invokes a traditional, in-depth examination of the rhetoric contemporary with the wrongdoing while affording the ability to consider organizations that survived a challenge to legitimacy.
The chosen cases were: (1) a case of wholesale lying by the president of a 9/11 survivors’ group, the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network (WTCSN), a donative entrepreneurial nonprofit; (2) theft by the paster of a local congregation, First Baptist Church Cold Springs (FBC), a donative mutual nonprofit; (3) alleged mismanagement of funds by leaders of a religious institution, Oral Roberts University (ORU), a commercial mutual nonprofit; and (4) heartbreaking medical mistakes by a regional NICU, Methodist Hospital of Indianapolis, a commercial entrepreneurial nonprofit. The cases occurred between 2004 and 2007, and each of the selected cases garnered local and often national media coverage including community examination of the organization and its wrongdoing. Texts examined included print/newspaper articles, letters to the editor, broadcast TV story transcripts, organization statements, press conference transcripts, and organizational member statements. Details about the process for collecting texts is described below.
Data Collection
The data used for this project, a total of over 450 texts, included print and broadcast media coverage as well as organizational responses in each of the four cases. Media articles were gathered through a multi-pronged effort that included searches within: (1) the LexisNexis® Academic database, (2) a general online search engine to confirm and collect local news articles, (3) the online news archives for major newspapers in each area, and (4) the main websites and news archives of all local network television affiliates. I conducted these searches at multiple stages between 2006 and 2008, a time period in which texts and some organizational members related to each incident of wrongdoing were still available. In total, 436 media texts were collected.
In addition to searching for media-based texts, I conducted searches of the four NPOs’ websites for organizational responses to the wrongdoing, and I directly contacted those organizations with limited publicly available texts to request additional relevant documents. For example, in the FBC case, I contacted the organization’s leaders directly for public documents not published through the internet. For this case, I also transcribed video news stories that included interviews with spokespersons and members, as recommended by one of the pastors, to add to the organizational texts (R. Raines, personal communication, May 8, 2008). In total, these transcriptions, combined with organizational statements and press conference transcripts, yielded 41 organizational texts.
Analytical Methods
To answer the overall research question, a thematic analysis of the media coverage and organizational responses surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing was conducted with a strict grounding of the analysis within the texts (Meisenbach & Feldner, 2011; Owen, 1984, 1985). According to Owen (1984), themes can be identified in texts through the consideration of three criteria: (1) recurrence, (2) repetition, and (3) forcefulness. Through continued reading and re-reading of the texts and considering recurrence, repetition, and forcefulness of ideas, I identified the major emergent themes. This analysis process was conducted through multiple stages.
First, I reviewed the articles, taking notes regarding general concepts and the overall content of the text. These notations were initially made on the specific content of sentences, paragraphs, and/or textual sections. These initial notes became the code terms. Second, I spent time reviewing these noted concepts and terms for repetition and forcefulness within the texts and then revised the terms into more general thematic codes. Throughout the process, I used Atlas.ti 5.2 software, a qualitative research tool that functions as a digital version of traditional pen-and-paper notetaking 2 . After developing a condensed list of themes, I created two reports: a summary report of selected text from the media messages and a report organized by individual thematic codes. These reports provided a holistic view of the emergent themes and indicated the specific texts from which each quoted section was taken through unique, assigned identifiers. These codes allowed me to return to the full text to reread surrounding sections once I compiled reports for individual themes. Finally, I examined the conceptualizations of nonprofit wrongdoing apparent within and among the themes and overall discourse, noting specific connections to prior rhetorical concepts that emerged from the analysis. These connections will become clearer as the discussion unfolds.
Findings and Interpretations
By examining four individual cases, this study provides a varied view into issues surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing and social legitimacy. The following sections first explore each individual case then consider more general insights regarding the rhetoric of nonprofit wrongdoing.
Case 1: First Baptist Church - A Case of Theft and Missing Church Funds
The first nonprofit selected for this study suffered a theft of funds by its church leader, then pastor of First Baptist Church (FBC) of Cold Spring, Kentucky. On January 23, 2004, FBC treasurer Darryl Neltner alerted Kentucky state officials about discrepancies he noticed in church records. In his letter, Neltner indicated that “more than $500,000 in church funds could not be accounted for and that there had been unusual activity in bank accounts” (Barrouquere, 2005). As the investigation unfolded, details of the allegations of wrongdoing against the church’s head pastor, Larry Davis, emerged. These included stealing over $700,000 of church money, using the funds to purchase a Porsche and other vehicles, forging loan documents to gain access to $500,000 above church-approved funds, and evading federal taxes for multiple years. The following year, Davis was indicted on charges of “theft, fraud and tax evasion” (“A northern Kentucky minister,” 2005). Initially, the pastor maintained his innocence. One month later, however, Davis pled guilty and resigned as pastor (“A northern Kentucky minister,” 2005). Davis was eventually convicted of theft and sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison; in 2006, FBC elected a new pastor. In reviewing and analyzing media and organizational responses to this wrongdoing, a number of important themes emerged.
Rarity of the Wrongdoing
The first theme evidenced in the media narrative of this event involved the rarity of the wrongdoing. In one article, pastors, in general, are portrayed as “self-sacrificing” and generally immune to the temptation of greed (Supplemental Index, Text 1a). The following excerpt reinforces Davis’s actions as an isolated case: [An] associate professor of biblical studies ... said many instances of financial misappropriation are unintentional, due instead to laziness or lack of understanding about tax laws. … [A] financial planner who specializes in clergy tax returns ... said that of the more than 10,000 tax returns he’s filed involving clergy, he has found only one misappropriation of funds. (1a)
Davis’s actions were also portrayed as isolated in comparison to his prior good works. For example, articles referenced Davis’s work in bringing evangelist Billy Graham to the area and his efforts in growing the membership of the church. Even in these portrayals, however, media coverage reflected dual organization narratives, highlighting the pastor’s bad actions but good past. For example, one media account noted that “they [supporters] wrote of kindnesses he had performed for individuals …. [while] others wrote about how Davis shattered their trust, stole funds donated for the church, and tore families apart” (1b). The portrayal of the case as an isolated example as well as the media’s emphasis on separating Davis’ wrongdoings from his prior good works worked to protect the church’s status. In media accounts, legitimacy questions for “churches” and “pastors” were responded to through discussion of the rarity of the wrongdoing and separating the wrongdoer from the acts. In other words, Davis was not the norm for church pastors and his specific wrongful actions were not the norm for him.
Separation from Sin and Supporters
Second, the response of many organizational members in this case began with establishing a separation from both the wrongdoing and from those who supported the wrongdoer. The original church treasurer, Darryl Neltner, served as an organizational member bringing to light the sins of another. However, eventually FBC’s support of Davis and ostracizing of dissenters necessitated creating a new, separate organization: a splinter church. As one account stated, Neltner “cooperated with the investigation and recommended Davis take a leave of absence. But within a few months, Neltner and nearly 100 other deacons, Sunday school teachers and church officers were voted out by Davis supporters” (1c). Neltner commented on the impact of these actions, stating: “I don't think they realized how much that meant to us. … I don't think they realize they need forgiving” (1c). Here, Neltner emphasized that the wrongful actions in this case were not limited to Davis but extended to the church members’ supportive of him. As a result, there was a need to separate not only from Davis but also from other church members.
The portrayal of the pastor’s character also played a role in the splinter church’s need for separation. One headline based on an interview with Neltner proclaimed “Pastor ‘Extremely Evil’” (1d). Neltner described the situation by stating, “In the last 2 years, I’ve grown to know Larry Davis as a very evil person who doesn’t care who he hurts to get what he wants” (1b). Davis’s portrayal as evil, combined with FBC’s continued support of Davis’s role as church leader, built the need for separation within the splinter church’s narrative. As Neltner explained, “There are people who don’t agree with what is going on and wanted to meet elsewhere” (1e). Here, the splinter church’s act of separating from sin protected the high moral expectations they had of their church.
Separating from the Wrongdoer and Moving On
Though achieved via a different route, separation was also a prominent theme in the original church narrative. For the original congregation, it was not until the pastor admitted wrongdoing and resigned from FBC that members began to talk about the church’s new future. Davis’s admission of guilt and resignation marked the beginning of a separation from the wrongdoing and the opportunity to talk about a different path forward. As one FBC member stated, “If there is a message in this that the community needs to understand, it is that the church is alive and will go on …. It’s a painful time, but the church has to go on and achieve its purpose” (1f). Once Davis admitted his guilt, church members moved on to support his resignation and then begin the search for a new pastor. By February, church members reported “a great feeling of unity” and a dramatic turnaround (1g). Other church members commented on returning “to the driving force in the community” that the church had been and allowing the “ordeal of the past two years … [to] impact the future for the better” (1h). In all, the church’s response was reflected in the theme of moving on through separation and accepting Davis’s resignation as a step toward a positive future.
Case 2: Methodist Hospital - A Case of Unintentional, NICU Overdose
The second case of nonprofit wrongdoing considered was an instance of unintentional wrongdoing by numerous people within a hospital. On September 16, 2006, six premature infants in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis received adult-level dosages of the drug Heparin, an anticoagulant drug used to keep blood from clotting around intravenous lines. Within hours, two of the premature infants died due to complications from the administered drug with the four other affected infants remaining in critical condition (Odle, 2006, September 17). By 5 p.m. the following day, hospital president and CEO Sam Odle held an open press conference to address the “tragic incident that occurred on Saturday evening” (Odle, 2006, September 17). By Monday morning, media coverage of the incident began around the country across local and national news outlets. Later reports revealed that five individual nurses in the NICU administered the incorrect doses of Heparin that were a thousand times stronger than the required amount (Tiernon, 2007). In reviewing the texts in this case, a number of important themes emerged.
Tragic Incident
First, throughout the organizational response to the situation, the events were consistently referred to as “a regrettable and tragic incident” (2a). While hospital administrators acknowledged that human error – namely the errors of a lab tech and nurses – was to blame, their consistent portrayal of the incident as one without intent to do harm and the brevity with which they addressed the staff’s responsibility for the wrongdoing avoided any scapegoating of the staff involved. Instead, the hospital president repeatedly indicated that the wrongdoing was indicative of a system-wide problem characterized as “procedural errors” (2b). As Odle explained, “We found that our system was broken. There was a weakness in the system. It wasn’t bad people” (2c). This discourse pointed to the way work was done as distinct from the overall character of the organization.
“Rarity” of the Wrongdoing
In addition to labeling the wrongdoing as a singular “incident,” the organization also consistently and explicitly referred to the wrongdoing as “a most rare and isolated” incident (2d). While the hospital acknowledged its responsibility for the wrongdoing, it did so while stating that the action was completely different than the normal activities of the hospital and NICU. For example, Odle stated that “We administer thousands of doses of Heparin each day and hundreds of thousands annually—this was extremely rare and isolated given our existing safety measures” (2b). In other words, their normal behavior aligned with the organizational mission and purpose; this isolated incident did not. The hospital also focused on the rarity of the incident in comparison to its past good works and reputation by citing the hospital’s good history, stating, “Methodist and all Clarian Hospitals continue to be among our nation’s safest. We have been recognized locally, statewide, and nationally for pioneering procedures, quality outcomes, and safe passage” (2a, 2d).
In addition to organizational statements regarding the rarity of the wrongdoing, a contrasting theme emerged in media messages portraying of the incident as a not-so-rare wrongdoing. This portrayal is evidenced on a broad level in the discussion of medical errors across the country and at a specific level in the discussion of a previous heparin overdose and a second medical overdose at Methodist after the NICU incident.
First, numerous stories focused on the problem of medical errors across the country. These stories referred to medical errors as a “depressingly normal” occurrence (2e). For example, one text provided the following information concerning medical errors in the United States: medication errors are the most common medical mistakes made in hospitals across the United States. … For the past three years, executives and clinical leadership from health-care systems in Indianapolis have met as a group … to address the ever-present risks to patients .... (2f)
According to one text, the attorney for the victims’ families stated that “accidental medical overdoses are not an isolated problem and they [the family and attorney] call the mistakes an issue of public safety” (2g). In another article, the families’ attorney described the extent of the problem as not simply isolated to Methodist Hospital. The article stated, "‘The problem is a lot more pervasive than what we originally thought,’ … [and] dozens of e-mails from families report[ed] similar drug errors at local hospitals” (2h). The discussion of the prevalence of medical errors portrayed the accident at Methodist Hospital as part of a larger, industry-wide problem. In a sense, this media discourse alleviated some of the scrutiny focused on the hospital by demonstrating the commonality of such occurrences. These contrasting narratives provide an interesting counterpoint as both the organizational theme of “we do not usually do this” and the media theme of “this happens to a lot of organizations” provide protection for the local organization.
Placing and Spreading Blame
A final theme in this case centered on assigning blame. In one editorial published the week after the incident, the accident was described as a tragic mistake: The medication errors and subsequent infant deaths that occurred at Methodist Hospital are a tragedy for the families involved, the health-care professionals and all of us in Indianapolis. Certainly, no one ever wants to see such a tragedy occur, but the fact remains that humans, even highly skilled health-care professionals, make mistakes. (2i)
In addition, numerous stories recounted the hospital’s explanation of the circumstances that led to the overdoses, indicating that the hospital staff never intended to do harm. For example, one article described the hospital’s statements in the following way: A veteran pharmacy technician accidentally delivered vials of heparin in adult concentrations to the neonatal intensive care unit. Nurses then administered the drug without checking the dosage on the label of the vial, which looked nearly identical to the infant-strength vials. (2j)
Some articles focused on the discussion of whether the hospital or drug maker was more to blame. A few days after the incident occurred, an editorial in The Indianapolis Star summarized this debate, stating, “But what boggles the mind is that the manufacturer was so unaware that its packaging of adult and children's heparin was courting this tragedy. … The buck stops with the hospital, but it started with the manufacturer” (2k).
Finally, the discussion of blame for the incident was expanded to include the hospital system broadly. For example, one article reported that the employees involved were not disciplined but instead received counseling and later returned to work. The head of the hospital explained the focus on providing support instead of censure, stating that “ultimately, the blame for our errors falls upon the institution. … This is a system failure" (2j). In another statement, the hospital president turned again to the notion of the incident as one without intent to do harm, explaining, “We found that our system was broken. There was a weakness in the system. It wasn't bad people” (2c). The hospital’s acceptance of responsibility was also recognized in media/community responses to the event. For example, an editorial written by 21 local and state health-care professionals stated, “Clarian Health Partners has stepped forward to accept responsibility and explain how institutional systems allowed the medication error to happen” (2f). In sum, nearly all of the articles published in the weeks following the incident dealt with the process of sorting out the issue of blame and spreading responsibility.
A comparison of the organizational narratives and media narratives in this case shows interesting differences in this regard, often involving the hospital accepting blame and the media spreading the blame around. In their statements, the hospital explicitly accepted all blame while acknowledging other factors that contributed to the wrongdoing, such as the drug’s packaging. The media, in turn, commended the hospital for accepting responsibility and expanded the narrative with regard to the contributing factors. As evidenced in this analysis and in other work, a number of organizational themes support protection of the organization’s purpose and separation of the incident, while still accepting responsibility and creating a changed future (Jones-Bodie, 2020).
Case 3: World Trade Center Survivors’ Network - A Case of Lying
The third case considered involved an instance of lying by a victims’ advocacy group leader for the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network (WTCSN). According to reports, then WTCSN President Tania Head was asked to resign after questions arose concerning the veracity of her personal story of being in the Twin Towers during the 9/11 terrorist attacks (“Head of 9/11 charity,” 2007). According to Head, she had been above the level of impact when the planes struck the World Trade Center, had returned a dying man’s wedding ring to his family, and had lost her own fiancé in the attacks. These and other experiences were often shared as part of her official work as president of the organization (“9/11 survivor,” 2007). A New York Times investigation, however, uncovered the truth—Head’s story simply never happened; she had fabricated her whole experience (Dunlap, et al., 2007). Upon learning of the wrongdoing, the WTCSN immediately removed Head as president of the organization. As her wrongdoing was exposed, numerous media outlets across the United States and around the world covered the story. The rhetoric surrounding this wrongdoing revealed a number of key themes.
Protection Through Separation
At the time the wrongdoing was uncovered, the WTCSN posted an official statement about the situation: Tania Head is no longer associated with the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network. This change will have no impact on the WTCSN’s mission or effectiveness. ... That mission, as well as the bond of fellowship we share with the other members of the 9/11 Community, remains unchanged. (3a)
In this short statement, the organization portrayed a commitment to protect its work through continued reference to upholding the organizational mission and the goal of helping others. By announcing the removal and separation from the wrongdoer in the first sentence of the statement, the WTCSN sought to remove any reason for questioning the integrity of the organization. Through statements made to the media a few days after the wrongdoing was exposed, the organization reported that Head had “not been in contact with anyone from the survivor group since the Times article appeared” (3b).
This narrative was also echoed in the media coverage of the wrongdoing which portrayed the separation as immediate and complete. Numerous examples focused on the complete removal of Head from the organization and the board’s vote to be “no longer associated with” the former president (3c). Other coverage discussed the immediacy of the separation: “While it appears that Head has never profited from her WTC connection, performing her tour guide work and charity duties for free, the organisations concerned have been quick to distance themselves from her” (3d). Other texts described Head’s removal as the result of the revelation that “she wasn’t a World Trade Center survivor as she claimed” (3e) and after “none of the details of her account could be verified” (3f). In all, the media messages supported the organizational members’ focus on protecting the organization’s mission by emphasizing the separation narrative.
Exposing Guilt and Its Emotional Impact
An important component of coverage in this case is the media’s role in initially exposing the wrongdoing and the subsequent focus on the source of the exposure. As the first to become publicly suspicious and question the wrongdoer’s story, journalists uncovered a wrongdoing that reached to the heart of the organization. Compared to other cases of “insiders” exposing wrongdoing, here the organization was placed in the role of responding to the allegations. The journalists’ exposure of the wrongdoing was combined with coverage focused on the emotional reactions and sense of betrayal felt by those involved. As described in one text, “They [reporters] picked holes in it [Head’s story], to the disbelief and dismay of people” (3g). Responses from those involved included statements about the sense of betrayal they felt as a result of the wrongdoing. For example, the interim president shared that, ''The sense of betrayal is profound. We were, I thought, close friends and what she has done has not just betrayed our friendship but also the whole September 11 community'' (3b). Other texts recounted organizational members’ descriptions of a betrayal of “friendship” and the “trust of the 9/11 community” (3h) and the characterization of the organization as just one of the victims of Head’s betrayal (3d). The highlighted emotional impact and shock described in the media coverage can be viewed as protection of the organization through identifying the bad apple of the bunch on behalf of the organization.
Finally, the presentation of wrongdoing within organization and media narratives was largely similar, though there were minor variations. In both narratives, the wrongdoer is portrayed as having betrayed the trust of the organization and the broader community; indeed, the media narrative presents the organization as a victim of the betrayal along with the community. Both narratives presented the portrait of the organization as good and honest and separate from the wrongdoing. However, while the organization emphasized its ongoing mission, the media emphasized its role in exposing the wrongdoing.
Case 4: Oral Roberts University – A Case of Mismanagement of Funds
The final case of nonprofit wrongdoing dealt with charges of mismanagement of funds by leaders at Oral Roberts University (ORU). In October 2007, three former ORU professors filed suit against the university and then university president Richard Roberts, son of ORU’s founder. The ex-professors claimed to have been fired after turning in a report “alleging ORU President Richard Roberts and his family spent university money for personal uses,” including claims that “ORU paid $29,411 for one Roberts daughter to vacation with friends in Florida and the Bahamas; Lindsay Roberts awarded scholarships to friends of her children; one of the Roberts’ children vandalized ORU property” and other specific allegations (ORU Timeline, 2007). In the week that followed, Roberts issued a statement outlining the university’s process of financial oversight, denied all wrongdoing, and offered explanations for each allegation. As media coverage continued, the turmoil and division at the university increased. Soon, Roberts requested a temporary leave of absence and reports surfaced about the university’s dire financial situation (being over $50 million dollars in debt). In November, university faculty voted no confidence in Roberts and, later that month, Roberts submitted his letter of resignation. After the board accepted his resignation, they announced a $70 million pledged donation from the Mart Green family, owners of numerous businesses including the national chain Hobby Lobby. The university received $8 million of the pledged donation immediately with the remaining $62 million donated contingent upon changes to the university’s administrative structure, including the separation of “ORU and the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association” though the “spiritual connection between the two organizations” remained in place (“News conference statements: Pastor,” 2007). After examining texts in this case, a number of key themes emerged.
Insiders Exposing Guilt
A major theme central to this case was a focus on the source of the exposure of wrongdoing. This focus is illustrated in coverage of ORU’s executive vice president of academic affairs and provost, Mark Lewandowski, who, a month after the initial suit, threatened to resign if Roberts was reinstated as president. According to the Tulsa World, Lewandowski wrote in his letter to the chairman of the board “that he and ‘many current administrators … are concerned that the ORU board of regents with the exception of a few bold individuals are waffling in their decision making and are considering the reinstatement of Richard Roberts’” (4a).
Other coverage focused on the insiders’ motives for exposing the wrongdoing and their desire to protect the university. For example, one article reported that “the professors initially turned over the report to administrators because ‘the allegations in it, if they were true, could have materially damaged the university and the board of regents’” (4c). The former professors also cited their omission of unverified material from the suit as a demonstration of their commitment to the university. As one CNN story reported, "‘We’re interested in truth, and we’re interested in justice. The things that were in those files, if untrue, would be so damaging that they would never recover,’ former ORU professor Tim Brooker told CNN” (4d). Relatedly, a New York Times article reported that “the plaintiffs said ‘some of the more salacious entries’ were omitted from the suit ‘to preserve, as much as possible, the remaining positive image of the university’” (4e). These excerpts demonstrated a specific approach of responding to wrongdoing, one that offers a mission-focused explanation as rationale for hiding information. In essence, these rhetorical responses aim to protect the organization while trying to root out problems.
Questioning Credibility, Honor, and Faith
A second theme in the media messages was a general questioning of ORU’s credibility as an organization in terms of both specific divisions on campus and overall tension at the university. First, many of those involved with the university, including students, were divided about supporting Roberts through the scandal. For example, the Tulsa World reported that “Student Cornell Cross II said, ‘I think we’ve all known that this stuff has been going on for a while.’ After learning of the lawsuit, Cross said, students took varying stances, from avoiding involvement to supporting the Robertses.” (4f)
Another student questioned the credibility of the department after the removal of the three ex-professors, stating that “the government program really is not credible anymore” (4g). According to the Tulsa World, ORU Board Chairman Pearson “personally apologized to students for the tumult” experienced after the filing of the lawsuit (4h). Another article focused on the choice facing ORU’s students to defend the university as a credible organization or to question its legitimacy: “To ORU’s 5300 deeply religious students, the events of recent weeks have brought an unexpected test, one that caused them to choose between questioning or defending the administration, worry about tainted diplomas and search for spiritual answers” (4i). Overall, media messages in this case presented the scandal as one that prompted “an examination of honor and faith” (4i). Not surprisingly, this theme was generally absent from official organizational statements.
Focusing on the Organizational Mission A final theme exhibited in the organizational rhetoric of the university was a continued focus on the organizational mission—in essence, an attempt to get rid of the bad but hold on to the good. For example, the discussion of the search for a new president highlighted the focus on organizational mission. An official university release stated, “Today, the Board voted to begin a formal search process for a new President. … The next President will have a strong commitment to the founding spiritual vision and principles of the University” (4j). Similarly, in an open letter to the Tulsa World, Chairman Pearsons stated: in all our decision-making and planning for the future, we remain true to the founding vision of ORU … Every action taken last week reflected the board’s commitment to our vision … [W]e will act with the best intentions possible from our hearts, souls, and minds, and, as always, seek God’s way and stay true to our founding vision. (4k)
The university’s “Renewing the Vision” fundraising campaign—which started in February 2008 just after the president’s resignation—also highlighted the focus on looking ahead to the university’s future vision (4l). In all, a focus on mission was apparent across the analyzed texts in this case.
Discussion
The analyses of these four cases of organizational wrongdoing demonstrated a number of commonalities and distinctions both across the cases and in comparing organizational and media discourse. Throughout these public discussions of nonprofit wrongdoing, issues of legitimacy abounded.
Protecting Legitimacy Through Movement Toward Mission and Separation from Wrongdoing
The organizational and media narratives of nonprofit wrongdoing examined in this study all exhibited strategies of rhetorical focus on mission and separation from the wrongdoer/ing, though in distinct ways in each case. In the FBC case, the impact of closure—removing the wrongdoer and installing a new leader—and the focus on the church’s vision helped to answer legitimacy questions. In the WTCSN case, there was an immediate separation from the wrongdoer, and in the Methodist Hospital case, a separation of the accident from the organization’s normal actions. The unique themes surrounding the rarity of the wrongdoing exhibited in the Methodist Hospital case also worked to create distance from wrongdoing and to move toward the organization’s mission. A more complex example, however, is seen in the partial separation exhibited in the ORU case. Here, the university’s partial separation from the wrongdoer created distance between the wrongdoing and the organization and its mission, though not fully from the wrongdoer himself.
Previous research (e.g. Benoit, 1995; Brinson & Benoit, 1999; Coombs, 2006) has shown the strategy of separation as one avenue for responding to organizational wrongdoing; in this project, the separation strategy worked in several ways. First, the discourses in these cases served as methods of dissociation—“arguments that break links … [and] bifurcate a unitary concept”— creating separation between the organization and wrongdoing (Hearit, 1995, p. 6). These cases show examples of bifurcation through two types of appearance/reality dissociation: individual/organization dissociation and scapegoating as well as act/essence dissociation (Hearit, 1995; Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969). In the cases demonstrating the separation of an individual wrongdoer from the organization (e.g., ORU, WTCSN, and FBC), we see the process of scapegoating or transferring guilt onto individuals (Burke, 1970). In contrast, in the Methodist Hospital case, the individual acts were separated from the overall essence of the organization and portrayed as “an accident, an isolated act that is the result of a mistake by an employee” (Hearit, 1995, p. 9). Across the cases, the narratives of nonprofit wrongdoing worked to create distance between wrongdoing and organizational normalcy and included a focus on organization mission and purpose that supported the separation.
Legitimacy Questions Deal with Responsibility, not Utility
Second, the findings in this project offer insight into the specific focus of legitimacy concerns surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing. When issues surrounding organizational legitimacy were addressed, they generally centered on questioning one component of legitimacy—responsibility – rather than on questioning the second component of legitimacy—the organization’s utility. Across the texts, the cases demonstrated little questioning of the value or benefit of the organizations themselves. Instead, the organization’s accountability and its actions became the basis for issues of organizational legitimacy. In the FBC case, legitimacy questions focused on the church’s accountability and the actions of the organizational leader. In the Methodist Hospital case, legitimacy questions dealt with specific institutional drug-administration policies, how the hospital provided care to the infants, and broader questions of industry drug packaging. What was not questioned was the overall benefit of the hospital for the community and the overall good intent of hospital workers. Thus, while the specific wrongdoing called into question the organization’s legitimacy with regard to the unmet public expectations about responsible enactment of care (i.e., the responsibility component), the hospital’s portrayal of the incident as unacceptable—in combination with immediate actions to change things for the future—preemptively addressed questions of legitimacy in a way that met public expectations. In the WTCSN case, there was a focus on the emotional impact of the wrongdoing, the sense of betrayal felt by organizational members, and a questioning how the leader could so blatantly lie to all involved. In the ORU case, questions concerning organizational legitimacy also centered on responsibility, focused primarily on the administration’s and president’s actions regarding the overall governance of the university. Here again, the focus was on questions of specific actions (i.e., responsibility) rather than a general questioning regarding the mission of the university (i.e., utility). As discussed earlier, Hearit (1995) argued that questions of social legitimacy are often indicated by “the emergence of public animosity toward the corporation. This hostility is a form of social sanction by which the supra-system (e.g., media, opinion-leaders, consumers, etc.) in effect says, “We don’t approve of what you have done” (p. 3). The findings from this project offer a more contextualized, nuanced perspective with regard to nonprofit wrongdoing. Though responses from constituents and the public demonstrated emotion and frustration with the wrongdoing as well as general critique focused on questions of responsibility, the rhetoric also demonstrated support for the nonprofit organizations and an absence of critique with regard to utility; this provides an interesting contextualization to the idea of the emergence of public animosity seen with corporations. Additionally, in Hearit’s (1995) work with social legitimacy and corporations, he argued that organizations typically focus more on competence, the corollary of the utility component, when facing social legitimacy concerns. This project suggests that the opposite may be true for nonprofit organizations facing similar concerns.
Conceptualizing the Notion of “Granted Utility”
Across these 450 texts, the overall narratives of wrongdoing indicated that the general questioning of legitimacy for nonprofit wrongdoing centers on the specific wrongful actions and related policies rather than on the usefulness of the organization; the foundational usefulness of the organizations was not questioned. In other words, there is evidence of what I term granted utility, an assumed foundational view of the accepted usefulness and underlying benefit of the organization.
A similar pattern of granted utility can be seen in legal contexts. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, someone who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matter, or any new useful improvement thereof” may be granted a utility patent (United States, 2021). Here we see a process of creating something useful and then seeking official status or recognition from a governing body in recognition of that usefulness. In this project, this status of utility, the usefulness and purpose, of nonprofit organizations often exists in a taken-for-granted way. Utility is an assumed status granted as foundational to NPOs and almost unquestioned when discussions and reactions to instances of wrongdoing occur. In other words, there is a foundation of granted utility permeating discussions surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing. In this pattern, we also see echoes of theorizing regarding the rhetorical construct of reification, where the very nature of things is unquestioned and the current status is seen as “the way it is” (Clair, 1993; Clair & Anderson, 2013; Mumby, 1987).
Rather than questioning utility, the rhetoric examined in these cases instead focused on questions of responsibility—specific organizational actions and work. Even in cases where the wrongdoing fell squarely into the realm of traditional notions of utility (e.g., the Methodist Hospital case), the public discourse and scrutiny still centered on questions of responsibility. Thus, the proposed notion of granted utility provides an evidence-based description and conceptual framework for everyday notions that we might already assume to be true for nonprofits: that they have some level of built-in legitimacy that comes from their status as organizations created to focus on the public good. These insights forward the notion of granted utility as a foundational concept for understanding nonprofit wrongdoing.
Implications and Major Contributions
The findings from this study point to important implications both for academic study of legitimacy and wrongdoing and for practitioners involved with nonprofit wrongdoing. First, there was substantial overlap of themes across media and organizational narratives. This finding is in some ways encouraging for those in the nonprofit sector in that areas within the control of NPOs (i.e., containing the source of the wrongdoing, organizational actions and policies to prevent future wrongdoing, etc.) are also seen as critical within the media narratives surrounding wrongdoing. Thus, the nonprofit organizations involved are able to respond to the wrongdoing through focusing on concerns within their immediate control.
Second, the overall media narrative of wrongdoing in these cases was generally supportive of nonprofits rather than skeptical, particularly regarding the usefulness of the nonprofits. That is, the benefit provided to the community by the nonprofit was not generally questioned, leading credence to the notion of granted utility. As a result, NPO representatives were freed to focus on the specific, and potentially isolated, aspects of the irresponsibility of the wrongdoing/doer.
Third, this project answers previous calls for focused, theoretical nonprofit work. As Lewis (2005) argued, “organizational communication scholars have not paid significant theoretical attention to nonprofit organizations” (p. 241). This project extends and deepens understanding of legitimacy questions during times of wrongdoing by locating the work specifically within the nonprofit sector. Additionally, by focusing on cases of nonprofit wrongdoing over a decade ago, this work allowed for the ability to reflect on the general status of each organization many years after the incident of wrongdoing. In a most basic sense, we are able to see whether the organizations weathered the storm of questioning that resulted from the wrongdoing. Do these organizations still exist years later? In the four cases presented here, the answer is yes. Three of the four still existed in 2021, while one organization, the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, was “effectively wound down” around 2017, a decade past the uncovered wrongdoing (Barron, 2019).
Finally, in addition to the practical and theoretical contributions this project provides in the nonprofit context, there are specific avenues of research that should be explored in the future. For example, in one of the four cases examined here, we saw complementary, dichotomous perspectives in the descriptions of the wrongdoing. Specifically, in the Methodist Hospital case, views of the incident were presented as both rare and not-so-rare. This finding, while seen in only one case, is an interesting demonstration of the concepts of perspective by incongruity (Burke, 1966; 1984) and mutual negation (Clair, 1993) whereby a new understanding is formed through comparison. Future research might explore when and in what other contexts this pattern unfolds. In addition, future research could specifically examine discourse surrounding cases of nonprofit wrongdoing where the notion of granted utility is directly challenged. In cases where utility-based crises occur (e.g., the Methodist Hospital case), would we continue to see the notion of granted utility in public discourse? Or, would we perhaps see a different pattern of responses in which the raison d’etre of the organization is challenged? Future research should continue to examine the notion of granted utility and its applicability in other cases and in specific contexts of the nonprofit landscape.
Overall, the narratives of wrongdoing in this project provided general support for the nonprofit organizations involved even in times of questionable action. The themes uncovered in this work expose the notion of granted utility as a key component of the rhetoric surrounding nonprofit wrongdoing. This overall finding has numerous applications within the nonprofit realm. Patrons and supporters of nonprofit organizations would be served by keeping in mind the tendency for granting foundational utility to organizations and by remaining critical of their own reactions in response to wrongdoing. Organizations weathering the storm of wrongdoing would do well to shore up a focus on their core mission while simultaneously addressing the specific wrongdoing and questions of legitimacy that arise. Acknowledging the foundation of granted utility allows organizations to state utility-focused messages as reinforcement and to focus energy on answering responsibility-focused questions of organizational legitimacy when wrongdoing occurs.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Granted Utility, a Proposal for the Rhetoric of Nonprofit Wrongdoing
Supplemental Material for Granted Utility, a Proposal for the Rhetoric of Nonprofit Wrongdoing by Ashley Jones-Bodie in Management Communication Quarterly
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the reviewers and editor of MCQ for their insightful comments and constructive feedback on this manuscript. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Josh Boyd for his instrumental support and guidance in the early stages of this project.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: University of Mississippi, College of Liberal Arts (Junior Faculty Grant for Research and Creative Ach).
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