Managing Image in a Core-Stigmatized Organization: Concealment and Revelation in Nevada's Legal Brothels
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This study examines the nature of the revelationconcealment dialectic faced by Nevadas legal brothels as these organizations work to strategically build visibility despite external pressures to keep them hidden and internal desires to protect the privacy of certain organizational stakeholders. In addition, in instances of organizational visibility, we examine brothels strategies for managing core-stigma while attempting to project a socially acceptable public image. Brothels address this revelationconcealment dialectic by adopting stigma-management strategies of distancing themselves from identities they perceive as socially undesirable and aligning themselves with nonstigmatized industry practices. At the same time, the brothels construct selectively permeable organizational boundaries through the invitation of controlled outsider boundary-crossings and through the promotion of their own community-engagement efforts. These results extend research on hidden organizations to consider the particular image-management challenges faced by shadowed organizations.
