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Who are You Going to Believe: Me or Your Lying Eyes? Three Essays on Gaslighting in Organizations

In this dissertation, I theorize on how gaslighting manifests in managerial and organizational settings. I discuss the process of gaslighting and how the use of various manipulation tactics manifests between people in organizations over time. I take three distinctive approaches to study this complex phenomenon. First, using a rich case study, I develop new theory to explain how one notorious child molester was able to sustain a career for decades while assaulting hundreds of children and young women. In doing so, I introduce the concept of gaslighting which previously has only been rigorously applied to intimate interpersonal relationships in domestic (e.g., at home) settings. In essay 2, I expand on the individual level theory developed in essay 1 to develop a more generalized theory of gaslighting in organizations. I situate gaslighting within a nomological net of related constructs and illustrate how gaslighting is a unique construct with different antecedents and consequences that occurs in organizations more often than it should. In my final essay, I build on one of the propositions developed in essay 2 and empirically test what antecedents are likely to influence whether or not a firm is accused of gaslighting on Twitter. Through doing so, I find counter-intuitive yet interesting results. In conducting a post-hoc analysis, I reveal insightful knowledge about the interactions influencing whether a firm will be accused of gaslighting on Twitter and impacting the number of accusations that will be leveraged against a firm.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2137648
Date05 1900
CreatorsKincaid, Paula A.
ContributorsReger, Rhonda, Kidwell, Virginie, Neumann, Craig S.
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Kincaid, Paula A., Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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