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KEY WORDS: analogical theorizing, cognition, culture, deviance, rational choice
ABSTRACT
In keeping with traditional sociological concerns about order and disorder, this essay addresses the dark side of organizations. To build a theoretical basis for the dark side as an integrated field of study, I review four literatures in order to make core ideas of each available to specialists in the others. Using a Simmelian-based case comparison method of analogical theorizing, I first consider sociological constructs that identify both the generic social form and the generic origin of routine nonconformity: how things go wrong in socially organized settings. Then I examine three types of routine nonconformity with adverse outcomes that harm the public: mistake, misconduct, and disaster produced in and by organizations. Searching for analogies and differences, I find that in common, routine nonconformity, mistake, misconduct, and disaster are systematically produced by the interconnection between environment, organizations, cognition, and choice. These patterns amplify what is known about social structure and have implications for theory, research, and policy.
INTRODUCTION
Weber warned that a society dominated by organizations imbued with legalrational authority would suffer negative consequences. Tracing that historic transformation, Coleman (1974) affirmed Weberian pessimism. He observed that this change altered social relations: Individuals not only interacted with individuals as before, they also interacted with organizations, and organizations interacted with other organizations. Coleman's primary insight was that this structural transformation produced both perceived and real loss of power for individuals. But the rise of formal organizations also wrought new possibilities for adverse societal consequences as a result of mistake, misconduct, and disaster. Surprisingly, these harmful actions and the extensive social costs to the public-the dark side of organizations-are not claimed as central to the domain of sociologists who define their specialization as organizations, occupations, and work, although prima facie, they would appear to fall within it. Organizational sociologists have affirmed that formal organizations can deviate from the rationalist expectations of the Weberian model; also, the pathologies that harm members are part of mainstream organization theory. But only recently have textbooks included harmful outcomes and organizational pathologies that adversely affect the public (Perrow 1986, Hall 1996, Scott 1998), and collections addressed failure, crime, and deviance in and by organizations (Anheier 1998, Bamberger & Sonnenstuhl 1998, Hodson...