We contribute to research on the management of social perceptions by considering the relative effectiveness of a firm's technical and ceremonial actions in managing media coverage after its own or its competitors' wrongdoing. We examine these relationships in the context of product recalls by U.S. toy companies over the ten-year period 1998-2007. As hypothesized, firms with higher levels of wrongdoing experience less positive media coverage; however, this decline is mitigated during periods of higher industry wrongdoing. Additionally, we find support for a negative spillover effect: the tenor of media coverage about a focal firm is less positive if others in its industry recall products. Further, technical actions help firms attenuate the negative effect of their own wrongdoing on the tenor of media coverage, whereas ceremonial actions amplify this effect. In contrast, ceremonial actions are more effective in attenuating the negative effect of industry wrongdoing on the tenor of media coverage about a focal firm. Information intermediaries-third parties such as the media, financial analysts, regulators, and consumer organizations-disseminate information, frame issues, and assist stakeholders in making sense of firm actions. By influencing stakeholders' perceptions about a firm, these infomediaries

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Research on organizational celebrity is in its nascence, and our understanding of the process through which organizations gain, maintain, and lose this asset remains incomplete. We extend this research by examining which information is the primary catalyst of the celebrity process, how and why this process unfolds, and what the potential consequences are for an organization. In doing so we make three primary contributions. First, we propose that the availability of information about the salient and socially significant elements of an organization's identity makes the media more likely to cast the organization as a main character in their dramatic narratives. Second, we theorize that the salience of these elements attracts constituents' attention and the social significance evokes their emotional responses. However, because some constituents may view the elements of an organization's identity as congruent and others as incongruent with their personal identities, an organization may simultaneously gain celebrity among some constituents and infamy among others. Third, we theorize that because of the different emotional responses that are generated from constituents' perceptions of identity (in)congruence, celebrity is more difficult to maintain and easier to lose than infamy. We thank Jonathan Bundy, Davide Ravasi, Jean-Philippe Vergne, Daniel Zyung, participants of the Maryland reading group, and participants at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation Symposia for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation for their generous funding of this research. Finally, we thank Peer Fiss and three anonymous reviewers for their feedback.