New Directions in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control

,

doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-3608-0

“…And much like the social control of individuals, the (limited) literature on the social control of organizational deviance has recognized that systems of surveillance and sanctioning (Zald, 1978) are necessary because organizations are often prone to engage in deviance "to attain desired organizational goals unless the anticipated penalties [...] exceed additional benefits the firm could gain by violation" (Vaughan, 1998: 23). Control can thus be exerted through physical coercion (Black, 1990), the withholding of resources (Emerson, 1962;Jacobs, 1974), as well as through attempts to shame deviants into compliance or by bestowing degrees of legitimacy on compliant organizations. On its own, the existence of formal and informal systems of sanctions, however, is not enough to ensure social control.…”

Section: The Social Control Of Individuals and Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting Away with It (Or Not): The Social Control of Organizational Deviance

Piazza

¹

,

Bergemann

²

,

Helms

³

2024

AMR

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The phenomenon of organizations breaking laws and norms in the pursuit of strategic advantage has received substantial attention in recent years. Such transgressions generally elicit the intervention of social control agents seeking to curb deviant behavior and defend the status quo. In some cases, their efforts result in the deviant behavior being suppressed; in other occasions, however, organizational deviance can persist and even be accepted into the very system of rules that was initially challenged. In this paper, we advance a structured view of this process by formulating a theory of the social control of organizational deviance. Building upon the sociological literature, we classify forms of social control based on their cooperativeness and formality; additionally, we shed light on the outcomes of social control by illustrating the conditions under which they are likely to be more or less accommodative of deviant behavior, as well as more or less permanent. In so doing, we contribute to the scholarly understanding of the role of social control in organizational fields, as well as of the advantageousness of deviant behavior as a strategic option for organizations.Forthcoming at Academy of Management Review 1999) and because sanctioning-in its many forms-can do real damage to the profitability and survival prospects of organizations (King & Soule, 2007). When organizations violate wellestablished codes of conduct or run afoul of existing laws, other actors-which we refer to as social control agents-will often intervene so that the rule system is not upended. In the cases of Uber and Airbnb, municipal authorities around the world stepped in to enforce the rules that the companies had violated. In the case of the UFC, many U.S. states moved to outlaw MMA, while prominent professional bodies such as the American Medical Association and the National Cable Television Association recommended a blanket ban (Helms & Patterson, 2014;Plotz, 1999).Deviant organizations may thus face the choice of either conforming to the status quo or shutting down completely. At the same time, deviance can be generative-as was ultimately the case with Uber, Airbnb, and the UFC-since it marks the beginning of a process that can sometimes result in outcomes that are to the deviant organization's advantage. This trade-off highlights the fact that deviant organizations can-and do-emerge victorious from these confrontations. In the most favorable case, deviants are able to continue pursuing their strategy undeterred, sometimes even getting a say in how rules are made (e.g., Desai, 2016;Gilad, 2014;Susskind & McMahon, 1985).Despite examples of market-based organizations positioning themselves in opposition to existing rules often making headlines (Greve, Palmer, & Pozner, 2010), the conditions under which deviance can be framed as a strategically sound option remain unclear. Part of the reason for this, we argue, is that scholars still lack a good understanding of the process through which deviant behavior is associated with positive outcom...

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Aid in Modulating the Impact of Terrorism on FDI: No Positive Thresholds, No Policy

Asongu

¹

,

Efobi

²

,

Beecroft

³

2018

Forum for Social Economics

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We investigate how foreign aid dampens the effects of terrorism on FDI using interactive quantile regressions. The empirical evidence is based on 78 developing countries for the period 1984-2008. Bilateral and multilateral aid variables are used, while terrorism dynamics entail: domestic, unclear, transnational and total number of terrorist attacks. The main finding is that foreign aid cannot be used as a policy tool to effectively address a hypothetically negative effect of terrorism on FDI. The positive threshold we cannot establish is important for policy makers because it communicates a cut-off point at which foreign aid completely neutralizes the negative effect of terrorism on FDI. From the conditioning information set, we also establish for the most part that the effects of GDP growth, infrastructural development and trade openness are an increasing function of FDI. Policy implications are discussed.JEL Classification: C52; D74; F23; F35; O40

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Getting Away with It (Or Not): The Social Control of Organizational Deviance

Piazza¹,

Bergemann²,

Helms³

2022

Preprint

4

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The phenomenon of organizations breaking laws and norms in the pursuit of strategic advantage has received substantial attention in recent years. Such transgressions generally elicit the intervention of social control agents seeking to curb deviant behavior and defend the status quo. In some cases, their efforts result in the deviant behavior being suppressed; in other occasions, however, organizational deviance can persist and even be accepted into the very system of rules that was initially challenged. In this paper, we advance a structured view of this process by formulating a theory of the social control of organizational deviance. Building upon the sociological literature, we classify forms of social control based on their cooperativeness and formality; additionally, we shed light on the outcomes of social control by illustrating the conditions under which they are likely to be more or less accommodative of deviant behavior, as well as more or less permanent. In so doing, we contribute to the scholarly understanding of the role of social control in organizational fields, as well as of the advantageousness of deviant behavior as a strategic option for organizations.

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New Directions in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control

Cited by 3 publications

References 80 publications

Getting Away with It (Or Not): The Social Control of Organizational Deviance

Getting Away with It (Or Not): The Social Control of Organizational Deviance

Aid in Modulating the Impact of Terrorism on FDI: No Positive Thresholds, No Policy

Getting Away with It (Or Not): The Social Control of Organizational Deviance

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