Constructing Consequences for Noncompliance: The Case of Academic Laboratories
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husing and silbey feb 25.pdf
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94.99 KB
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73cec3d4004663d02f6aae9a9d58d989
Author(s)
Huising, Ruthanne
Silbey, Susan S.
Date Issued
September 2013
Journal
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Publisher
Sage Publications
Citation
Huising, R., and S. S. Silbey. “Constructing Consequences for Noncompliance: The Case of Academic Laboratories.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 649, no. 1 (August 2, 2013): 157–177.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We examine academic research laboratories as examples of intractable governance sites. These spaces often elude regulatory warnings and rules because of the professional status of faculty members, the opacity of scientific work to outsiders, and loose coupling of policy and practice in organizations. We describe one university’s efforts to create a system for managing laboratory health, safety, and environmental hazards, thereby constraining conventional faculty habit to ignore administrative and legal procedures. We demonstrate the specific struggles safety managers face in creating system responsiveness, that is, feedback to re-channel noncompliant laboratory practices. We show how faculty members are buffered from the consequences of their activities, thus impeding the goals of responsibility and accountability. We conclude by asking where such pockets of intractability reside in other organizations and whether the surrounding buffer, if there is one, may nonetheless paradoxically create an effective margin of safety.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213492633
