Understanding Deviance in a World of Standards

Professor Fried and her co-contributors have produced a book with significant implications for the fields of compliance, regulation, organizational behavior, corporate governance, and applied business ethics. The book reviews taxonomies and case studies to help us understand how and why deviance from standards occurs in organizations. Most helpful for research into large-scale corporate wrongdoing, the book closes with a discussion of how their findings should shape our thinking about individual versus corporate liability, civil, and criminal penalties for such behavior. I recommend the book to anyone looking for insight into these questions. * J.S. Nelson, Professor of Law (Business Ethics), Villanova Law & Business Schools, Villanova University *
Why do organizations deviate from standards? Are there good and bad organizational reasons for deviations beyond individual misbehaviour? You can find answers to these questions in this intellectually stimulating book that is full of critical reflection and fascinating empirical insights, for example about attentive deviance, over-conformity, non-regulated, and illegitimate deviance within software developing organizations. * Günther Ortmann, Professor of Leadership, Witten/Herdecke University, formerly Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg *
Standards are intended and expected to be repeatedly or continuously used by a substantial number of the parties for whom they are meant. However, this use is not self-evident. Standards may be ignored, unconsciously or consciously, but this book highlights another phenomenon: stakeholders may deviate from standards - again unconsciously or consciously. This book provides a thorough analysis of such deviations using in-depth case studies, revealing that different categories of deviations apply. Some of these were touched on in previous research but this is the first real study of them, making this book a great addition to the body of knowledge of standardisation, relevant for both the academic community and practitioners. * Henk de Vries, Professor of Standardisation Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and President of European Academy for Standardisation EURAS *