Temporal storytelling in response to organizational stigma: negative and positive sensemaking of change in Sicilian public employment services

This paper aims to investigate if and how organizational stigma influences positive or negative temporal storytelling on image change, inefficiency, and financial scandals. Qualitative data have been collected in two Sicilian Public Employment Services (PES) through field observations, individual interviews, and focus groups, analyzed following a qualitative abductive approach, and coded through narrative analysis. PES employees' temporal storytelling shows the alternation of positive perceptions of “nostalgia” and “postalgia”, and negative perceptions of “nostagonia” and “postagonia”. In case of core stigma, organizations are more prone to use postalgia, a positive future orientation through agency, and nostagonia, a rejecting and detaching attitude towards past stigma associations. Conversely, in the case of event stigma, it is more likely to observe on the one hand both nostagonia and nostalgia, due to the traumatic event stigma, and on the other hand, postagonia, a pessimistic attitude towards the future. In both organizations, we observe agency responses.