ABSTRACT
Most sane adults are well-aware that blaming is a social fact of life. People devote considerable energy to constructing plausible justifications and excuses for what they have already done—they often are more assiduous practitioners of retrospective than of prospective rationality. These justifications and excuses serve important intrapsychic functions (maintaining and enhancing one’s self-image and sense of self-efficacy) and important impression management functions (Chatman, Bell, & Staw, 1986; Schlenker, 1980). Nowhere is the importance of these functions more obvious than in the workplace. Given that one’s organizational fate largely hinges on the favorable opinions of others within the organization, managing a favorable self-presentation is a matter of enormous consequence. Ideally, one wants to be seen as endowed with whatever qualities are especially prized in one’s organizational culture (e.g., loyalty, attention to detail, assertiveness). One wants to be associated with positive organizational outcomes. At a minimum, one certainly does not want to be blamed when things go awry. Like the game of “hot potato,” no one wants to be stuck holding the unwanted object, or the blame, when the game is up.
