This study analyses the factors that underlie scandals driven by managerial social irresponsibility and the dimensions that influence the possibility to pivot the company back to success after a social scandal.
The understanding and active management of the mechanisms that undergird the damage and restoration of the relationships between the firm and its constituent audiences are key to overcome crises generated by widespread social disapproval. By moving from broad structure reasoning to the scrutiny of the microfoundations of social evaluations, the possibility that firms maintain and manage diverse social evaluations contemporarily and the complexities it entails are evidenced. The juxtaposition of the theoretical framework elaborated with a comparative analysis of four partially overlapping case studies highlights: (i) the variety of criteria audiences base their support decisions on; and (ii) the role, sequencing and interplay between legitimacy and reputation for the management of the post-scandal crisis. If, on the one hand, strategic soundness may be considered an antecedent of managerial social irresponsibility, on the other, this study underscores its role for post-scandal firm survival.
The existence of a multiplying effect of the relationship between corporate social behaviour and the strategic sources of competitive advantage is suggested.

Arabella Mocciaro Li Destri is Associate Professor of Business Economics and Management at the University of Palermo (Italy). She earned her PhD in Management from the University of Catania (Italy) and has held visiting positions at the Sloan School of Management - Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), Tuck Business School at Dartmouth and IAE Business School of the Universidad Austral in Argentina. Her research interests cover themes related to institutional contexts and firm innovation, network governance and cognitive performance, inter-firm coopetitive and relational dynamics, managerial social irresponsibility. She has published numerous books and articles internationally.