The Dark Side of Organizations and a Method to Reveal It

The ability to see the larger context is precisely what we need to liberate ourselves. (Milgram, 1992: xxxii) Few who have read Stanley Milgram’s book, Obedience toAuthority (1974), or have seen videos of these “shocking”experiments can forget them. In our view, Milgram’s exper-iments offer important lessons about contexts, human behaviors, and the role of contexts in setting boundary conditions around such behaviors. This article takes these lessons seriously. But first, a suc-cinct summary of the experiments. A “teacher ” is instructed by the “scientist-in-charge ” to administer an electric shock to a “student ” every time he gives a wrong answer—which is most of the time. The teacher is given a list of questions in advance. The electric shocks range from 15 to 435 volts and are visibly displayed on a panel facing the teacher: Slight 15+ … Intense 255+ … Danger 375+ … XXX 435. The student—a superb actor who is not actually shocked—starts to grunt at 75 volts. He follows a standard script. At 120 volts he complains verbally; at 150 he demands to be released from the experiment. His protests continue as the shocks escalate, growing