Organizational Sensemaking of Non-ethical Consumer Behavior: Case Study of a French Mutual Insurance Company
Abstract
Researchers and managers alike are becoming
increasingly interested in the topic of unethical consumer
behavior. Where most studies view unethical behavior as
something that is identifiable per se, the authors of the
present article believe that it only exists because it has been
constructed by people operating within a specific context.
Hence the efforts made by this paper to explore, at the level
of one specific organization, how interactions between
employees and consumers might lead to the construct of
unethical consumers. Based on a case study of France’s
AMDM—a mutual insurance company set up to serve a
client base comprising motorcyclists—the paper addresses
how one group of consumers ends up being categorized as
unethical by revealing the existence of a sensemaking
process within the target organization. This process
develops in three main phases: the nurturing of a shared
ethos; the protection of employees’ recognized status; and
the demonization of any group of consumers threatening
this status. Managers incorporating this sensemaking process
can avoid or mitigate the negative effects befalling
organizations when these kinds of unethical consumer
behavior are constructed.