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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A paper which considers the concept of organisational deviance in relation to Perrow's theories of normal accidents, and applies these ideas to the reasons for the Challenger disaster. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: JL5_JLchallnch.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
objectives or norms of an organization and produces an unwanted result: it can, therefore, include carelessness, error, negligence, mistakes as well as deliberate misconduct. In addition, it is not always
easy to define deviance itself: changing perceptions of what is legitimate or acceptable mean that what is regarded as deviance at one point in time can be considered normative at
a later date. We see this, for example, in legislation relating to drug use: many of the substances categorized as illicit in modern society were a normal part of the
home pharmacopoeia a century or so ago. It is generally accepted that in many cases deviant behavior will lead to unwanted outcomes; however,
as Perrow (1984) explains, identifying and isolating specific instances of such behavior to which such outcomes can be directly attributed can be difficult, if not impossible, because of the complex
nature of organizational systems. He offers an example where the reader is invited to consider a scenario in which one obstacle or problem occurs after another, leading to the individual
being unable to keep an important business appointment. The scenario, if not its individual components, will be uncomfortably familiar to his audience, who will all have had experiences where everything
seems to conspire against them achieving a desired goal. However, Perrows main point here is to illustrate that there
is no single factor which, taken in isolation, has prevented this desired outcome: it is the combination of a number of mostly unrelated elements which has done so. He also
makes the related point that the outcome of all this disparate elements - the failure to keep the appointment - then itself becomes a single element amongst many others in
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