The Social Construction of Organizational Deviance: A Multi-Actor View

Abstract

The question of how and why social actors adhere to and violate societal norms has long fascinated management scholars and practitioners. Hardly a day goes by without newspapers, NGOs, or regulators calling out an organization or its members for behavior that breaks the law or violates ethical standards. In this symposium, we will explore how such instances of organizational deviance are socially constructed. Conceptualizing organizational deviance as socially constructed means that deviance is seen as behavior in or by an organization that actors outside the organization – such as government agencies, social movements, or media outlets – label as violating norms. The notion of organizational deviance as being socially constructed in this manner is well-established in neighboring disciplines such as sociology, but its implications have been neglected by management scholars. The projects in this symposium explore these implications to shed light on the social construction of deviance from different angles and in different contexts. Taken together, the work in this symposium pushes forward a multi-actor view on the social construction of organizational deviance, highlighting how deviance is created from the actions and interactions of multiple actors with distinct roles, and how this creation in turn influences these actors’ behavior. In making these contributions, the papers in this symposium draw on novel contexts, such as the US Prescription Drug Epidemic and the #MeToo movement, and present a balance of empirical and theoretical analysis. Where are all the Deviants? Liminal Prescribing Practices and the Prescription Drug Epidemic Presenter: Shu Zhang; U. of Wisconsin, Madison Presenter: Aharon Cohen Mohliver; London Business School Presenter: Marissa King; Yale U. How does a Wrongdoing Become a Wrongdoing? Social Control and the Labelling of Corporate Behavior Presenter: Rasmus Pichler; U. of Cambridge Presenter: Thomas J. Roulet; U. of Cambridge Social Movements and Shifts in Legal Punishments for Contested Practices Presenter: Mary-Hunter McDonnell; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Timothy Werner; U. of Texas at Austin Presenter: Brayden G. King; Northwestern U. The Dilemma of Managing Multiple Social Evaluations in a Crisis Presenter: Farhan Iqbal; U. of Georgia Presenter: Michael Pfarrer; U. of Georgia Presenter: Jonathan Nicholas Bundy; Arizona State U.