Abstract With the case study MetroEngineers, Sarah Langer, Ronny Gey, Diana Karadzhova-Beyer, and Andrea Fried highlight organizational deviance from standards in the software development of a service engineering company for rail vehicles called MetroEngineers. Despite the initial intention to develop software according to European standards, the case study explains the reasons why the software developers deviate from standards nonetheless. First, software development at MetroEngineers is provided for a Chinese market which is hardly regulated through standards. Deviations from standards are therefore hardly sanctioned, but even MetroEngineers itself has not established an adequate internal sanctioning system for standard deviations. Second, MetroEngineers’ software developers lack allocative and authoritative resources for standard enactment and a lively internal discourse on the importance of standard-compliant development involving middle management and the customer. This means that software developers are ambitiously trying to develop in accordance with European standards, but ultimately fail to overcome the various contradictions that arise in standard enactment. This chapter represents one of the two manipulation-oriented types of organizational deviance introduced in the book.

Abstract In this chapter, Andrea Fried and Besma Glaa develop and reason the important and topical question why organizations deviate from standards. The chapter reflects on the current discourse on standards and standardization in management and organization studies, and positions Understanding Deviance in a World of Standards within it. The chapter distinguishes the terms standards and standardization, defines what standards are, and explains which categories exist to distinguish them. It points out why investigation of the actual enactment of standards in organizations is fundamental to understanding not only the manipulation of but also the commitment to standards. The chapter concludes by introducing the structure of Understanding Deviance in a World of Standards.

Standards have become widespread regulatory tools that promote global trade, innovation, efficiency, and quality. They contribute significantly to the creation of safe, reliable, and high-quality services and technologies to ensure human health, environmental protection, or information security. Yet intentional deviations from standards by organizations are often reported in many sectors, which can either contribute to or challenge the measures of safety and quality they are designed to safeguard. Why then, despite all potential consequences, do organizations choose to deviate from standards in one way or another? This book uses structuration theory—covering aspects of both structure and agency—to explore the organizational conditions and contradictions under which different types of deviance occur. It also provides empirical explanations for deviance in organizations that go beyond an understanding of individual misbehaviour where mainly a single person is held responsible. Case studies of software developing organizations illustrate insightful generalizations on standards as a mechanism of sensemaking, resource allocation, and sanctioning, and provide ground to rethink corporate responsibility when deviating from standards in the ‘audit society’.

Abstract In this chapter, Sarah Langer and Andrea Fried reflect on the relationship between standards and innovation. They observe how studies of the relationship between standards and innovation show contradictory results; standards can both enable and constrain innovation. There are several reviews that deal with the question of the standard–innovation nexus and come to the same conclusion that the results are not satisfactory thus far. By identifying reflexive, diagnostic, self-monitoring, and inadequate ways of monitoring standard enactment, the standard–innovation nexus can be explained in a novel way. The authors suggest that the way in which organizations monitor deviations from standards influences whether their organizational processes are explorative or exploitative in nature. The chapter concludes with propositions for further research.

Abstract In this chapter, Andrea Fried and Arvind Singhal highlight which novel research questions break ground when taking a second-order perspective on organizational deviance. The concept of the ‘second-order observer’ for researchers leaves the assessment of organizational deviance explicitly to the empirical field, and brings organizations and their members as describers, as assessors, and as sanctioners of organizational deviance into the discussion. The chapter strengthens social agency in deviations from standards to counteract the view that deviants are a ‘passive non-entity’. Fried and Singhal describe how organizational deviance has three dimensions and can analytically be distinguished as a descriptive, a normative, and a sanctioning aspect. The chapter concludes with six assignments for developing a concept of organizational deviance.

Abstract In this chapter, Andrea Fried and Sarah Langer present a novel typology to systematize the variety of and reasons for organizational deviance from standards. The typology explains why organizations deviate from standards. It identifies four types of organizational deviance: two types of commitment-oriented deviance (attentive deviance from standards and over-conformity with standards) and two types of manipulation-oriented deviance (non-regulated deviance from standards and illegitimate deviance from standards). The basis of the typology is a cross-case comparison of CraneSolutions, MedTech, and MetroEngineers, as presented in part II of the book. In this comparison the authors explain which organizational conditions and contradictions in standard enactment make a certain type of organizational deviance likely.

Abstract This chapter presents a case of a medical technology company where standards have already shaped software development processes for a long time. Ronny Gey, Sarah Langer, and Andrea Fried reflect here on how MedTech’s organizational members over-conform with standards. In contrast to CraneSolutions in the previous chapter, productive asymmetries and even contradictions were hardly found in standard enactment at MedTech. MedTech provides adequate allocative and authoritative resources for standardization, refers to strong internal and external sanctioning systems for standard deviations, but hardly reflects on the internal effects of standards on software development. The case described in this chapter delivers an explanation why over-commitment of organizational members to standards tends to reinforce organizational inertia and shows the importance of reflexive handling of standard-induced requirements within the organization. This chapter represents one of the two commitment-oriented types of organizational deviance introduced in the book.

In this chapter, Andrea Fried discusses the implications of a better understanding of deviance from standards for corporate responsibility in terms of both compliance-related duties for companies a ...

In this chapter, Andrea Fried discusses the implications of a better understanding of deviance from standards for corporate responsibility in terms of both compliance-related duties for companies and their criminal liability. Five questions related to this are answered in this summarizing chapter: Is voluntary self-regulation of companies a way of ensuring corporate responsibility? What contributes to a manipulation of standards even if a strong external control and sanctioning system is in place? Should legislative authorities only sanction actual knowledge of and engagement in wrongful acts of standard deviation? Should legislation stipulate a criminal liability also for companies? Why should companies allow organizational members to deviate from standards? Answers to these questions relate to the empirical investigations presented in previous chapters of the book and show strong support for a corporate criminal law that should apply when standard deviations lead to health, environmental, or safety risks.

In this chapter, Ronny Gey, Sarah Langer, and Andrea Fried draw attention to the actual enactment of standards in organizations. They describe a software developing project of the crane manufacturer CraneSolutions which is confronted with a situation where no standards are directly suitable for its niche products. The case of CraneSolutions is a striking example of mainly attentive deviance from standards. The chapter analyses how the organization succeeds in committing to standards while deviating from them attentively. Based on a structurationist framework, the analysis of CraneSolutions enables understanding of the enactment of standards as represented in the interpretative schemes, the facilities, and the social norms of the organization. Moreover, the authors explain organizational deviance from standards as a way of how organizations deal effectively with emerging asymmetries and contradictions during the enactment of standards. This chapter represents one of the two commitment-oriented types of organizational deviance introduced in the book.

Abstract In this chapter, based on structuration theory, Fried and Walgenbach develop a theoretical framework for exploring organizational deviance from standards empirically. They identify standards as modalities of action which trigger rules of interpretation, claim allocative and authoritative resources, and furthermore cause rules of sanctions in organizations. This overrides the view that failed standard enactment has something to do with either missing financial investments, or an inadequate ‘tone at the top’, or ineffective audits. It is rather, as the authors argue, its interplay that leads to an effective standard enactment or not. This interplay can yield different asymmetries and contradictions, which then lead to different types of organizational deviance.

This chapter focusses on the appearance and implementation of process standards in software development organizations. The authors are interested in the way organizations handle the plurality of process standards. Organizations respond by metastructuring to the increasing demand for standardizing their development processes. Standards metastructuring summarizes all organizational mechanisms for facilitating the ongoing adaption of global standards to the organizational context. Based on an in-depth single case study of a software developing organization in the automotive technology sector, the authors found four areas of metastructuring, four roles for standard mediation, and four types of metastructuring activities. With the case study, they encourage further research that proves standards in use and how organizations respond to the challenges of standardization.

A phenomenological perspective on organizational deviance – the enactment of standards in software development

In this paper we are interested in organizations as recipients of standards and question how standards are enacted in their daily practice. The aim of the paper is to develop a practice lens on standards to gain knowledge about the use of standards. To understand recent critical deviances from standards in several industries better, we suggest to investigate the interplay of legitimation, signification and domination during the enactment of standards within organizations. Based on the structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) and the enactment approach (Weick, 1988), we develop a heuristic framework for the analysis of standards as practice. We deliver qualitative, ethnographic insights from ongoing empirical research on the enactment of standards in a railway vehicle engineering company which is engaged in a metro development project for a Chinese client. We could retrace 28 metaphors for standards in the empirical data describing how standards appear in the daily practice. Our empirical investigations reveal that legitimation, signification and domination are intertwined during the enactment of standards. Furthermore, the interaction of legitimation, signification and domination induces three organizational tensions: (1) divergent interests for standard compliance, (2) blurred responsibilities for standard compliance, and (3) the drift between the internal significance of standards and the available resources. We trust that depending on how organizations solve these tensions it will have an influence on the organizational deviance from or compliance with standards and finally a crucial impact on human health, safety or environmental protection.

Deviance in management and organization studies : functionalist and interactionist perspectives

The article reviews the terminological distinctions (e.g. action and result control, interactive and diagnostic control) used for control in twenty-five empirical studies on management control in the context of innovation. The terminological distinctions are classed in three categorizations. These are (a) the types of managerial control, (b) the design and use mode of managerial control instruments and (c) the enabling and constraining character of managerial control instruments. By analyzing the categorizations, it becomes evident that there are two, almost independent ontological streams shaping the empirical field: the determinist perspective and the voluntarist perspective of management control with different understandings of contingency. The 'ideal fit' approach to contingency of the determinist perspective adds little cumulative knowledge to the field of management control in the context of innovation. Therefore, the article suggests to strengthen the voluntarist perspective and to develop a 'quasi fit' interpretation of contingency. The agenda for prospective research in management control in the context of innovation includes to investigate deviant and repair behavior related to management control systems (MCS) in innovating activities, to understand MCS as dependent as well as independent variable and to explore the role of MCS in economizing innovative activities.

This special issue of the Journal of Management Control focuses on management control in the field of innovation and innovation management.On the one hand, this subject is motivated by the high relevance of innovations for long-term company success or failure calling for an effective application of management control systems on innovation processes-or: innovation control.On the other hand, there is still a lack of substantiated knowledge about the theory, concepts and methods of innovation control.Similarly, little is known about the application of innovation control concepts and methods in company practice.

Academic citizenship is, conceptually speaking, closely related to organisational citizenship behaviour, as both concepts can be regarded as consisting essentially of personal co-worker and organisational support behaviours. Academics across the world operate in widely divergent settings in different socioeconomic and political situations and higher education environments. Such differing circumstances might be expected to have a bearing on the priorities that academics face in different countries and the ways academic citizenship is understood. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to analyse perceptions of academic citizenship and employee well-being in one Swedish and one South African university which operate in starkly different socioeconomic circumstances. The findings of the exploratory study suggest that despite wide-ranging differences in socioeconomic environments between the two countries, there is a high degree of common understanding of the form and substance of academic citizenship and its bearing on well-being. Key words Academic citizenship, organisational citizenship behaviour, South African and Swedish universities, well-being

The paper is of conceptual nature and sheds light on the increasing pressure on organizations for compliance to standards in the audit society (Power, 1994). Compliance implies conformity with a rule such as a specification, policy, law or standard. Hitherto, management literature does not scrutinize the underlying functional impetus of the idea of compliance sufficiently. In our reading, to become compliant with standards for an organization is not a simple search of indicators of control as well as a decision for suitable modes of governance. It is rather a fairly ambiguous process where different perceptions of deviance and compliance with a certain standard evolve within an organization. For this reason, we explore and develop the concept of deviance (Becker, 1963) for organizations theoretically to explore standard compliance/noncompliance in practice on the one hand. On the other hand, we suggest that the concept of deviance from standards can specify for whom a certain deviation is purposeful and for whom not. Thus, contrary to existing managerial literature on deviance focusing on individual deviant behavior (Kidwell & Martin, 2005), we consider it as important to emphasize the relative nature of compliance and deviance. This way we also make the analytical concept of deviance proliferous for organizational analysis and explore standard compliance as a multidimensional concept. To underline the creation of deviance by standards we deliver initial qualitative, ethnographic reflections from ongoing empirical research.

Certification matters - competition of market, rational-bureaucratic and professional logics in software development organisations