Abstract

The point of view of academic institutions is adopted to focus on certain deviant behaviors among students with the aim of designing ways to cope with them. Three points are drawn from a study of the writing of theses in a French business school. First, the scope and diversity of students’ deviant behaviors with which academic institutions must cope are identified. Secondly, a typology is drawn up of institutional reactions to such behavior. Thirdly, attention is drawn to several major organizational issues that an academic institution must take into account if it wants to work out methods for coping. Light is shed on the dilemma that reactions to such deviancy generate for institutions of this type.