Abstract:
Vaughan’s research on organizational misconduct has shown that when deviance becomes normalized in groups, actions that outsiders define as deviant are defined as normal and acceptable in the group. Cultural understandings develop that enable and in fact legitimate deviant and illegal actions to the extent that participants do not feel they are doing anything wrong. In the Reckless lecture, she will discuss the normalization of deviance in both organizational and individual deviance and illegality, research directions to improve understanding of how this process operates, and the implications for social control.
Lecturer:
Diane Vaughan is Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She taught at Boston College from 1984 to 2005. During this time, she was awarded fellowships at Yale (1979-82), Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford (1986-87), The American Bar Foundation (1988-1989), The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1996-1997), and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2003-04).
Her interests are the sociology of organizations, sociology of culture, deviance and social control, field methods, research design, and science, knowledge, and technology. Much of her research has examined the "dark side" of organizations: mistake, misconduct, and disaster. Her books are Controlling Unlawful Organizational Behavior, Uncoupling, and The Challenger Launch Decision. The latter was awarded the Rachel Carson Prize, the Robert K Merton Award, Honorable Mention for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship of the American Sociological Association, and was nominated for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. As a result of her analysis of the causes of the Challenger accident, she was asked to testify before the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003, then became part of the Board's research staff, working with the Board to analyze and write the section of the Report identifying the social causes of the Columbia accident.
Barrister Club, part of the Moritz College of Law
