Organizational Wrongdoing, Boundary Work, and Systems of Exclusion: The Case of the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to scientific reports › Research
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Organizational Wrongdoing as the "Foundational" Grand Challenge: Definitions and Antecedents. ed. / Claudia Gabbioneta; Marco Clemente; Royston Greenwood. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2023. p. 171-192 (Research in the Sociology of Organizations ; Vol. 84).
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to scientific reports › Research
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Organizational Wrongdoing, Boundary Work, and Systems of Exclusion
T2 - The Case of the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal
AU - Fey, Laura
AU - Amis, John
PY - 2023/7/24
Y1 - 2023/7/24
N2 - The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal was one of the largest examples of organizational wrongdoing in corporate history, costing the firm immense damage to its reputation and over $33 billion in fines, penalties, financial settlements, and buyback costs. In this paper, we draw on the concept of boundary work to provide insight into the causes of wrongdoing at VW. Supplementing other work on the scandal, we show how the ways in which boundaries became established in the organization resulted in an internal context that defined “in” and “out” groups, normalized certain behaviors, and limited communication across intraorganizational boundaries. This allowed wrongdoing to not only become established but also to go unchallenged. We provide contributions to broader understandings of organizational wrongdoing and to the temporal unfolding of boundary work by theorizing how a combination of cognitive, horizontal, and vertical boundaries can create an infrastructure of organizational design that permits organizational wrongdoing, prevents it being challenged, and ultimately normalizes it in everyday activities.
AB - The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal was one of the largest examples of organizational wrongdoing in corporate history, costing the firm immense damage to its reputation and over $33 billion in fines, penalties, financial settlements, and buyback costs. In this paper, we draw on the concept of boundary work to provide insight into the causes of wrongdoing at VW. Supplementing other work on the scandal, we show how the ways in which boundaries became established in the organization resulted in an internal context that defined “in” and “out” groups, normalized certain behaviors, and limited communication across intraorganizational boundaries. This allowed wrongdoing to not only become established but also to go unchallenged. We provide contributions to broader understandings of organizational wrongdoing and to the temporal unfolding of boundary work by theorizing how a combination of cognitive, horizontal, and vertical boundaries can create an infrastructure of organizational design that permits organizational wrongdoing, prevents it being challenged, and ultimately normalizes it in everyday activities.
KW - Entrepreneurship
KW - Wrongdoing
KW - broundary work
KW - cognitive boundaries
KW - organizational design
KW - volkswagen scandal
KW - dieselgate
KW - Management studies
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/219f1f74-6b81-307e-946c-59ac85ae9544/
U2 - 10.1108/s0733-558x20230000084009
DO - 10.1108/s0733-558x20230000084009
M3 - Contributions to scientific reports
SN - 978-1-83753-279-7
T3 - Research in the Sociology of Organizations
SP - 171
EP - 192
BT - Organizational Wrongdoing as the "Foundational" Grand Challenge
A2 - Gabbioneta, Claudia
A2 - Clemente, Marco
A2 - Greenwood, Royston
PB - Emerald Publishing Limited
ER -