Tua culpa: When an Organization Blames Its Partner for Failure in a Shared Task

We examine the growing but understudied phenomenon of organizational blame shifting in the wake of failure in an interorganizationally shared task. Organizational blame shifting, which can take private as well as public forms, represents an organization’s attempt to shape both the partner’s and the public’s sensemaking of the failure. Blame shifting enables an organization to limit its financial responsibility and contain potential reputational...