This episode, I speak with Devin Rapp who is an Assistant Professor of Management at Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University.

In our conversation, I talk with Devin about his recent paper in AMJ about Dirty Heroes - people who work in stigmatized jobs but are also publicly celebrated. The paper explores how workers manage perceptions of stigma, a very negative social evaluation, alongside celebration, a very positive social evaluation. We discuss the complex nature of doing stigmatized work and how making heroes of people who do these jobs can sometimes lead to unintended consequences. I also ask Devin how we can properly celebrate people who do the difficult, but necessary work in our society.

Paper:

Rapp, D. J., Hughey, J. M., & Kreiner, G. E. 2024. Dirty Heroes? Healthcare Workers’ Experience of Mixed Social Evaluations during the Pandemic. Academy of Management Journal, 67(4): 1124-1157.

https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2022.0502