Resumo

On 25th January 2019, Brazil’s most significant working tragedy and one of the world’s worst environmental disasters took place in Minas Gerais. In facing such a disastrous event, organizations seek to employ justifications in an attempt to give sense and to repair its image. We bring a sociological lens into the studies of misconduct to suggest an alternative approach to the interpretation of a catastrophic event. The results provide a perspective of how Vale gave sense to a disaster emphasizing the industrial and market justifications in an attempt to soften its accountability.

How did Vale employ justifications on the Brumadinho dam disaster to give sense and (attempt) to repair its image? We aim to analyze how Vale provided justifications to give sense and (attempt to) repair its image in a complex social situation, Brazil’s worst working tragedy and one of the world’s worst environmental disasters.

The Brumadinho dam disaster is a case of organizational misconduct (“an illegal, unethical, irresponsible behavior that transgresses a line separating right from wrong and that harms its stakeholders”) due to the evidence that the company was aware that the dam was unsafe and reoccurrence after the Mariana dam disaster. We apply the justification theory, that analyzes situations of disagreement wherein justifications are employed to reach an outcome among actors, to study a case of misconduct of the third mining company in the world Vale, during the Brumadinho dam disaster in 2019.

We followed the case study strategy that has been used in previous research regarding actors’ justifications. We used the orders of worth framework as a set of analytical codes. Content analysis strategy of textual data in written forms was applied. We evaluated written data on Vale’s website, while also bearing in mind the context of the event and the public debates that emerged in 2019 – from newspaper articles. We collected secondary data from a page called “Reparation” created by the organization to communicate the decisions and actions taken regarding the disaster to the public.

Our study explored the justifications provided by Vale on the Brumadinho dam disaster, comparing them to the main topics on Brazil’s public debate in 2019, interpreting how co-existing accounts contributed to an ordered outcome of the disaster. For example, Vale employs the civic world to evoke collaboration with investigating authorities; the media evokes it to provide information on the unfolding of investigations. Vale employs the industrial world in an attempt to take less responsibility for the disaster; the media evokes it to provide more information on ongoing reparation procedures.

Our study reveals a discrepancy between Vale’s policies and misconduct practices. Vale’s statements from our sample demonstrate an attempt to engage with dissociation of the responsibility with the disaster by using the ideas of accident, tragedy, and “unexpected” technical failures. By claiming that all technical and safety issues of the dam were in accordance with regulatory requirements and by claiming that the disaster was something “unforeseen” and “unimaginable”, Vale took into account the burden of the social approval, thus taking less accountability for the disaster.

Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (2006). On Justification: Economies of Worth (trans. Cat). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bundy, J., & Pfarrer, M. D. (2015). A burden of responsibility: The role of social approval at the onset of a crisis. Academy of Management Review, 40(3), 345–369. Hersel, M. C., Helmuth, C. A., Zorn, M. L., Shropshire, C., & Ridge, J. W. (2019). The corrective actions organizations pursue following misconduct: A review and research agenda. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 547–585.