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Perhaps no book published in organizational studies in 2008 is more helpful in understanding the global state of affairs during this cataclysmic time in history than Professor Susan Long's The Perverse Organization and its Deadly Sins. As the book's title suggests, Long analyses the unconscious cultural assumptions and collusions that contribute to the creation of perverse cultures in organizations world-wide. One only needs to pick up the newspaper in nearly any country, on any day, to find a ready application for Long's approach.
This week's New York Times, for example, chronicles the US financial markets' billion dollar bailouts, commercial airlines hiding managerial deficiencies in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and US ‘big three’ ‘automakers’ pleas for governmental assistance. Moody's Investor Services, the USA's oldest and most prestigious credit-ranking agency, admitted it inflated ratings of Countrywide Mortgage — a leader in the sub-prime mortgage debacle — causing foreclosures on hundreds of thousands of homes in order to attract investors. Generating revenue of $1.35 billion in the first three quarters of this year alone, Moody's greedy executives questioned why they have become a ‘punching bag’ for angry, envious Americans lamenting, ‘Why does everyone hate us so much?’ (Morgenson, 2008). Even as the major US auto manufacturers travelled the 525 miles from Detroit to Washington, hat in hand, to beg for a government bailout, they could hardly contain their gluttony: each flew in a separate personal jet. New York Congressman Gary L. Ackerman inquired, ‘Couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jetpooled, or something, to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it’ (Schwartz, 2008). How did we get here? Long's theories about ‘the perverse organization’ help shed light.