Coping with Financial Stigma : a study of budgetary identity work in a candidature for the Olympic Winter Games

Abstract: This book provides an account of the intersection between management and accounting in one of the world’s most notorious financial disasters – the Olympic Games. More specifically, it is based on a case study of a candidature for the Olympic Winter Games, where project managers were occupied with pitching their budget for such a megaproject in the light of prevailing cost controversies. In order to make sense of the corresponding challenges faced by these managers, the concept of organizational stigma is introduced to the social study of budgeting. In doing so, this book sheds light on the link between budgeting and stigmatization processes, the corresponding internal effects of organizational identity threats, and especially the role of budgeting to potentially overcome these threats.  Based on this, the book answers the question of why and how organizational members cope with the financial stigma of megaprojects like the Olympic Games through budgeting. It argues that, by virtue of their symbolic functions, budgets may become key attributes of such a financial stigma, which makes them pivotal objects in the identity work of organizational members.