Beyond ‘bad apples’ and ‘weak leaders’
| Author | Susanne C. Monahan,Beth A. Quinn |
| Published date | 01 August 2006 |
| Date | 01 August 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480606065911 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Theoretical Criminology
© 2006 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 10(3): 361–385; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480606065911
Beyond ‘bad apples’ and ‘weak
leaders’
Toward a neo-institutional explanation
of organizational deviance
S U S A N N E C . M O N A H A N A N D B E T H A . Q U I N N
Montana State University, USA
Abstract
This article examines two starkly different cases—the abuse of
prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and the falsification of
architectural internship reports—in developing a neo-institutional
analysis of deviance within organizations. We argue that the
organization’s role extends beyond a failure to act (e.g. monitor,
prevent, punish) to include implementing formal structures—
decoupling—that make individual deviance both predictable and a
predicate of organizational ‘success’. We identify environmental
conditions associated with decoupling, strategies to achieve it and
organizational responses of deflection. By linking macro-level rule
environments, organizational structure and participant behavior, we
offer a theoretical framework that elides the long-standing
definitional struggles in white-collar crime research through the
simultaneous consideration of the organization as environment and
the environment of the organization.
Key Words
decoupling • neo-institutionalism • normal deviance • occupational
deviance • organizational deviance • torture
Deviance within organizations is often framed as a product of individual
choices or behaviors, especially in mainstream discourse and in the popular
press. For example, in the case of the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, three
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primary explanatory models have competed for ascendancy: (1) rogue
individuals from the US Military Police unit engaged in bad behavior (i.e.
the ‘bad apple’ explanation); (2) somewhere up the chain of command
individual officers gave orders that ultimately led to the abuse of Iraqi
prisoners (i.e. the ‘following orders’ explanation); or (3) abuses were the
product of failed leadership by specific persons who did not clearly
communicate norms or adequately monitor and supervise underlings (i.e.
the ‘failed leadership’ explanation).
The first explanation (‘bad apples’) is exemplified in the military’s court
martial proceedings for soldiers who directly interacted with Iraqi pris-
oners, as well as in the Bush Administration’s claim—from the moment the
allegations of abuse first came forward—that the abusive behavior was
atypical of the military and simply bad behavior on the part of a few out-
of-control soldiers (see Graham, 2004; Higham and Stevens, 2004; White
and Higham, 2004). The second explanation (‘following orders’) is exem-
plified by the defense in the court martial proceedings who have tried to
identify specific persons (e.g. Military Intelligence personnel, civilian con-
tractors, Pentagon officials) up the chain of command who ordered the
Military Police officers to use abusive techniques to ‘soften up’ Iraqi
prisoners in order to elicit information from them (see Cha and McCarthy,
2004; Cha and Merle, 2004; Higham et al., 2004; Vedantam, 2004; White
and Allen, 2004). The third explanation (‘failed leadership’) is exemplified
by accusations that mid- to high-ranking military officials (e.g. US Brig.
Gen. Janis Karpinski) failed to adequately train, monitor or supervise
troops on the ground, and failed to respond to early warning signs of
problems within the prison (see Graham and Ricks, 2004; Smith, 2004;
Taguba, 2004; White and Higham, 2004). Each of these explanations
focuses on the personal failures of individuals within the military (albeit at
ascending hierarchical levels) to act in legal, ethical or moral ways. Each of
these explanations also deflects attention from both the organizational
environment and the environment of the organization within which
abuses occurred.1
In contrast, criminological accounts of corporate and occupational devi-
ance have identified a variety of ways in which deviant behavior by
individuals is shaped by organizational context and processes. Some re-
searchers have focused on power relationships in organizations and how
those relationships can generate deviance (see Vandivier, 1972), others on
how cognitive processes that emerge in organizational settings may pro-
duce deviant behavior (see Kelman and Hamilton, 1989; Gioia, 1992), and
yet others have examined how socialization processes in organizations and
society can lead to the normalization of deviance (Skolnick and Fyfe, 1993;
Hochstetler and Copes, 2001; Crelinsten, 2003). In addition, Vaughan
(1982) has examined how the sheer structural complexity of organizations
may facilitate deviance in organizations, while Jackall (1988) and Pearce
(2001) focused on the relationship between formal control systems in
organizations and organizational deviance.
Monahan & Quinn—Beyond ‘bad apples’ and ‘weak leaders’
363
Although criminologists recognize the importance of formal organiza-
tions as structures and sites of action, historically based distinctions
between occupational deviance and corporate (or, more broadly, organiza-
tional) deviance continue to obscure the interconnections between these
phenomena. Studies of occupational crime consider the organization as a
context for deviant behavior to explain the decision making and actions of
those within organizations, frequently lower- and mid-level actors. In so
doing, however, they often fail to account for the embedded context of the
organization itself (or at least limit the factors considered, e.g. to economic
conditions) or the possibility that such ‘crime’ may directly or indirectly
enhance organizational effectiveness. Studies of corporate deviance, on the
other hand, begin with the legal fiction of the corporation as ‘individual’
and seek to explain the organization’s deviant actions. This line of work,
however, runs the risk of anthropomorphizing the organization, treating it
as if it had human motivations and capacity to act (Cressey, 1988).
Organizational structure is the product of decisions made by those with the
authority to establish such structure. When viewed in this way, the creation
of structure is as much the product of human agency as is the occupational
crime of lower-level participants. In addition, as Glasberg and Skidmore
have noted, studies of organizational deviance have tended to imply ‘a
focus on the internal structure of the organization itself as if the organiza-
tion exists independently of external forces that might create relations,
processes, and structures within organizations’ (1998: 426). Thus, calls for
definitional clarity in the study of white-collar crime (e.g. Braithwaite,
1985), though well placed, have produced a degree of fragmentation across
levels of analysis.
Rather than hold fast to the distinction between corporate and occupa-
tional crime, the present article considers simultaneously organizations and
the environments of organizations as contexts for human action. Specifi-
cally, we explore the relationship between (1) strategically designed and
implemented structures and (2) deviant and criminal acts perpetrated at
lower levels of the organization. Organizations are more than just in-
cidental or neutral locations where deviant behavior occurs. The role of
organizations, and their leaders and managers, often extends beyond a
failure to do certain things (e.g. monitor, prevent, punish, respond with
sufficient vehemence) to include implementing strategies for formal struc-
ture that facilitate deviance by participants and make such deviance
both predictable and a predicate of organizational ‘success’. Specifically, we
identify how organizations, through aspects of their formal structure
and strategies for eliding this formal structure, play a significant facili-
tating and causal role in the deviance that occurs within them. In this,
our approach parallels Vaughan’s (1982, 1997) multilevel analysis of
organizational deviance. We extend her analysis by offering a more general
theoretical framework that draws on neo-institutional organizational
theory (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, 1991;
Scott, 2001).
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Theoretical Criminology 10(3)
Neo-institutionalist theories conceive of formal organizations as deeply
permeated by broader cultural forces. As Scott argues: ‘Socially constructed
belief and rule systems exercise enormous control over organizations—both
how they are structured and how they carry out their work’ (2003: 120).
Neo-institutionalists thus challenge traditional ideas about the rationality
of organizational structure and call into question whether the primary
purpose of formal structure is to monitor, constrain and evaluate behavior
within organizations. Instead, the theory’s proponents argue that independ-
ent of its technical rationality, organizational structure is institutionalized,
that is, ‘taken for granted as legitimate, apart from evaluation of [its]
impact on work outcomes’ (Meyer and Rowan, 1977: 344). Institution-
alized structures enhance organizational stability by symbolizing, for ex-
ternal constituencies, the organization’s conformity with broader cultural
rules and expectations.
In this article, we examine what actually happens under the cover of
institutionalized structure by focusing on the empirical observation of de-
coupling. When operating in complex and competing institutional (or
‘rule’) environments, organizations are often formally organized so as to
shear structure (the blueprint for organizational action) from action (what
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