Dr. M. David Ermann

Educational Background:

(Ph.D. University of Michigan)
Dr. Ermann is Professor of Sociology, and director of the department's undergraduate health care concentration. His undergraduate teaching focuses on complex organizations, especially the crimes they commit, and the health care system. As part of the health care concentration, he offers SOCI 410, Health Care Practicum, every winter and summer session for students interested in gaining actual work experiences in medical settings. He has also taught undergraduate courses about the social impact of computers. His graduate teaching centers on courses entitled "Organizational Deviance" and "Sociology of Organizations."

Research Interest:
His research focuses on organizational deviance. Most recently he published the sixth edition of Corporate and Governmental Deviance (Oxford University Press, 2001). Currently he is continuing work on his manuscript about why some usually nondeviant organizations and their people intentionally hide hazards and thereby knowingly cause human injury and death. Oxford published the third edition of his co-edited Computers, Ethics, and Society in early 2002.

Representative Publications

Corporate and Governmental Deviance: Problems of Organizational Behavior in Contemporary Society, 6th edition. (With Richard J. Lundmann.) Oxford University Press, 2002.

Computers, Ethics, and Society. (With Michele Shauf.) Oxford University Press, 2002.

Corporate Deviance. (With Richard J. Lundmann.) Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.

Social Research Methods: Perspective, Theory, and Analysis. (With Kenneth Eckhardt.) Random House, 1977.

"Pinto 'Madness' as a Flawed Landmark Narrative: An Organizational and network Analysis." (Matthew T. Lee and M. David Ermann) Social Problems 46 (No 1), 1999.

"Corporate Concealment of Tobacco Hazards: Changing Motives and Historical Contexts." (With Gary Rabe.) Deviant Behavior 16 (1995):223-244.

"Cautionary Tales and Social Impacts of Computers." (With Mary Williams and Claudio Gutierrez.) Computers and Society 19 (3) 1989:23-31.

"Responses to Corporate Versus Individual Wrongdoing." (With Valerie Hans.) Law and Human Behavior 13 (2) (1989):151-166.

"How Managers Unintentionally Encourage Corporate Crime." Business and Society Review 59 (Fall, 1986):30-34.

"The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and Its Campaign Against Marketing Infant Formula in the Third World." (With William Clements, II.) Social Problems 32 (December, 1984):185-196.

"Corporate Violations of the Corrupt Practices Act." (With Richard J. Lundmann.) In Herbert Edelhertz and Thomas D. Overcast (Eds.), 1982. White Collar Crime: An Agenda for Research. D. C. Heath.

"Organizational Responses to Imputations of Deviance." (With Alan Horowitz.) Sociological Quarterly 22 (Winter 1981):43-55.

"The Operative Goals of Corporate Philanthropy: Contributions to the Public Broadcasting Service, 1972-1976." Social Problems 25 (June, 1978):504-514.

"Deviant Acts by Complex Organizations: Deviance and Social Control at the Organizational Level of Analysis." (With Richard J. Lundmann.) Sociological Quarterly 19 (Winter, 1978):55-67.

Courses Regularly Offered

SOCI 311: Sociology of Health Care. Professionalization of health occupations, hospitals as social systems, medical education and practice organizations, health care organizations and their interrelationships (politics of health), and health service patterns.

SOCI 410: Health Services Practicum. This on-the-job experience serves students considering careers in medical administration, social work, and medicine. It places them in almost full-time five-week positions under supervision of experienced health service personnel. Placements are carefully customized (really) to help students evaluate careers they are considering, and to get them recommendation letters. Some students live and work at home and commute to Newark for Friday seminars. This course typically is offered in winter and summer sessions, is open to all University students, and usually is graded Pass/Fail. Representative recent Newark-area placements were at Christiana Hospital, Union Hospital, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Alfred I DuPont Children's Hospital, and Cokesbury Village nursing home. Administration positions included Christiana hospital, the Elsmere Veterans Hospital, HMOs, nursing home chains, and a consulting firm.

SOCI 428: Corporate Crime. This advanced seminar explores the deviant behaviors of corporations and other large organizations. Most importantly, it tries to understand why these offenses happen. It also tries to understand how and why some actors (prosecutors, whistle-blowers) go about the business of accusing organizations of deviance, and what tactics organizations use to defend themselves. Cases considered in some depth include price-fixing, hiding the hazards of tobacco and dangerous drugs, and selling infant formula to Third World mothers.

SOCI 628: Organizational Deviance. This graduate seminar studies: society/organization interactions that may promote organizational deviance (market economy, legal system mandates, etc.); individual behaviors in organizational settings (differential association, obedience, etc.); and deviance-defining and organizational response patterns (publicity, use of lawyers, etc.).