Playing Blame Games Is Not Only Unethical, It Is Also The Wrong Way Out Of The Covid Mess.

In the second half of January, we witnessed a bitter row between AstraZeneca and the European Commission. AstraZeneca reported they would be unable to reach the target number of vaccines they are supposed to provide to European countries. Even worse, the UK were found not to suffer the same delay, and benefit from a more favorable treatment. Later that month, France and Germany decided the same vaccine was anyway not recommended for people over 65. Macron, the French president, laid it even thicker by noting that the AstraZeneca jab “doesn’t work the way we were expecting to,” while in the meantime taking a stab at the one dose strategy chosen by the UK. The consequences did not take much time to become visible: Germany and France are seeing much fewer takers than expected for the vaccine.

Whatever we may think about the AstraZeneca vaccine, it might well become a collateral victim of a not-so discrete blame game played by European political leaders. In a recent piece published in Organization Theory, I discuss with my colleague Rasmus Pichler how actors tend to look for ways to shift responsibility when they face blame. Here, many European political leaders face rising discontent with their handling of the vaccine rollout and are naturally tempted to pin their struggle on an external actor. Similarly, criticizing others’ approach is a way to legitimize theirs. But does such a strategy work?

Blame Gaming as a Leadership Strategy

Playing blame games is a reasonably common leadership strategy. When leaders fail their followers, shifting the responsibility to another actor (preferably outside their organization) is a comfortable defense strategy. Last year, Boeing’s new CEO blamed the former CEO for critical mistakes that he was also accountable for to avoid being himself scrutinized. In most cases, and in the short run, blame games are beneficial because they enable leaders to avoid facing the full force of tangible and intangible penalties for making mistakes.

In our study, we identify what makes blame games possible: ambiguity. Ambiguity arises when audiences are likely to struggle to attribute responsibility – because of complexity or uncertainty. In the Covid context, the diversity of parameters and the difficulties to plan and anticipate future situations make it hard for the public to understand who is responsible for what. While the public can expect the government to set up a vaccination strategy, the same public also has limited information to understand under which constraints and conditions this strategy can be implemented. Such a situation leaves room to interpret the performance of governments in managing the situation.

Whether it is about governing a country or managing a large organization operating in a complex environment (such as the one we currently operate in!), the situation is likely to present some ambiguity that leaders can take advantage of to engage in blame games. By shifting responsibility to other parties, leaders of those organizations can protect themselves. They cut themselves some slack to explain low performance. As we suggest in our work, there are however, decreasing returns in doing so: leaders are likely to lose credibility if they continuously rely on such strategy. It is not only inefficient in the long run, but it is also unethical and will likely alienate followers who will lose trust in their management.

Why Blame Games Destroy Societal Value

As shown by the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout in Europe, blame games often have very concrete consequences for leaders and their followers, and the broader society. Here, European political leaders’ strategies might have raised public suspicion against a vaccine that could turn the tide against Covid.

By blurring the lines and making the attribution of responsibility more difficult, blame games also hamper accountability. Suppose social actors feel they can avoid being held responsible for mistakes and the related reputational penalties. In that case, they have fewer incentives to do things right and strategically take the risk of becoming sloppier. In short, a society in which blame game is rife is likely to become dysfunctional before anybody realizes what is happening.

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