Averting Expected Challenges Through Anticipatory Impression Management: A Study of Hospital Billing
研究医院如何通过预期印象管理策略，在患者质疑账单前分散其注意力、简化信息处理，从而规避挑战。对理解组织如何预防性管理公众印象有参考价值。
Existing theory and research on organizational impression management focuses on how spokespersons use remedial tactics, following image-threatening events, to put their organization in the best possible light. By contrast, little theory or research has considered how organizations use impression management tactics to avert undesirable responses to upcoming events. This paper uses a qualitative and inductive study of billing procedures at three large hospitals to develop theory about how organization members use impression management tactics to fend off specific, expected challenges to organizational practices that are ambiguously negative. We found that hospitals use anticipatory impression management tactics to: (1) distract, diminish, or overwhelm patients' attention to hospital charges; and (2) to induce emotions that lead patients to simplify their information processing of those charges. Hospitals appear to use such anticipatory obfuscations both to fend off patients' initial challenges and to prevent their existing challenges from escalating. We discuss these findings in terms of their contributions to theories of symbolic management, social influence, and routine service encounters.