ABSTRACT
There are a number of implications to university units or organisations becoming so toxic that they cross the threshold into a total toxic institution. One of the advantages of Goffman's model is that it is multi-dimensional, taking into account the psychological, social, cultural, and organisational processes and contexts, as well as identifying levels on which moral problems and violations exist. The kind of power appropriates identity constructs and redefines them, for example, redefining 'professional' as conformity to the toxicity and being either complicit with or submissive to it. While the mechanisms and phases of adjustment may be the same as the in Goffman's model, additional psychological explanation is required in voluntary educational organisations of schools and universities to explain why staff can comply to such high degrees. The organ-isational studies field has also contributed a large body of work on toxicity and destructive dysfunctionality such as the 'depth' approaches, 'shadow', 'unconscious' levels, and various other forms of dysfunctionality.
