Accounting for organizational misconduct

Szwajkowski, Eugene

doi:10.1007/bf00870552

Cited by 31 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The case oil company started with these refusals and returned to them every time the reality was too much to bear. Swajkowski (1992) says that, if an organisation admits net harm but not responsibility for misconduct, it uses excuses. According to our model splitting, projection, projective identification and regression are common excuses, with which an organisation can claim that someone else is responsible for the occurrence.…”

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…According to Swajkowski (1992), when an organisation admits neither net harm nor responsibility for misconduct, it resorts to refusals. According to our model, these refusals can take different forms: an organisation may be in denial, it may repress misconduct into its unconscious, it may try to undo misconduct with tricks, or it may have omnipotent fantasies about its own greatness in order to forget its misconduct.…”

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Hypothetical model of defences Swajkowski (1992) has presented, and Bradford and Garrett (1995) have empirically tested, a matrix of four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct: refusals, excuses, justifications and concessions. The different organisational defences can be positioned into this matrix (Ketola, 2004) in the way the following figure shows (Figure 1).…”

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the figure at the beginning of this paper the different psychological defences were added to Swajkowski's (1992) matrix of four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct: refusals, excuses, justifications and concessions. This hypothetical model of defences is here tested with the evidence from the above oil spill case.…”

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The hypothetical model of defences will be developed from Swajkowski's (1992) matrix of four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct, into which the different psychological defences will be integrated. The resulting model of defences will be tested in a European oil company in which an oil spill spread into a crisis.…”

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Ketola¹

2006

J Bus Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Organisational psychological defences protect the self-esteem and moral integrity of the organisational personality even at the expense of sacrificing the morality of actions. This paper analyses the spectrum of defences used by an oil refinery and its parent company during an oil spill incident. A hypothetical model of defences built on Swajkowski’s four responses to accusations of organisational misconduct – refusals, excuses, justifications and concessions – is tested through this case. On the basis of empirical findings it is obvious that defences delay, impede and interrupt the mitigation and recovery actions of incidents. It is not possible to break the defence behaviour of individuals because it is a built-in psychological mechanism in all humans serving a valuable purpose of dosing the pain of injury. However, it is possible to separate individual and organisational behaviour so that automatic organisational procedures mitigate, recover and, ultimately, prevent incidents. The organisational psychological task of crisis management is to mitigate the organisation’s ego defences, recover from its emotional turmoil and prevent further traumas by making its ego stronger and more flexible. The argument of this paper is that in practice organisational defences act as bumpers against becoming too conscious of the gap between the corporate rhetoric and reality, as subconscious breaks against too fast change demands, and as batteries in their preconscious effort to prepare for the change. Organisational refusals act as bumpers, excuses as breaks and justifications as batteries, while concessions imply that a change towards a more responsible corporation is taking place. Copyright Springer 2006crisis management, defence behaviour, oil spill, organisational concessions, organisational psychological defences, organisational excuses, organisational justifications, organisational refusals,

show abstract

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Testing the Hypothetical Model Of Defencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Ketola¹

2006

J Bus Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Eco‐psychological profiling: an oil company example

Ketola¹

2004

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When organizational image is being challenged, use of psychological defences may become excessive. In this paper 18 defences that appeared in an oil company during an oil spill are studied. All defences except sublimation contributed to the deterioration of corporate image. Sublimation allowed the company to take responsibility. Other defences simply put off facing the truth. The selection of defences used during crises reveals organizations' true personalities. Twelve different organizational personality types are discussed. Use of certain defences leads to the development of a neurotic personality. The case company turned out to be normally and neurotically demanding, paranoid, narcissistic and attention seeking, and normally depressive. Organizations constantly using primitive defences are borderline personalities. Excessively defensive organizations may turn psychotic. The case company's reactions to the incident were psychologically revealing. Finding defences characteristic of the company allowed us to build its eco‐psychological profile. Based on this case study an eco‐psychological profiling model is proposed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

show abstract

Leadership Approach: Removing Psychological Barriers to Virtuous Sustainable Development

Ketola

2017

International Handbooks in Business Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Accounting for organizational misconduct

Cited by 31 publications

References 18 publications

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Corporate Psychological Defences: An Oil Spill Case

Eco‐psychological profiling: an oil company example

Leadership Approach: Removing Psychological Barriers to Virtuous Sustainable Development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About