In any large organization, there are basically two classes of rules: 1) stupid red tape rules that slow everyone down and 2) really important rules that you can never break ever. Effective people learn which rules fall into which group so they can break the red tape rules and get more stuff done.
Your argument circles back to the posters point. Knowing which rule you can break at a specific point in time. Why are you being so anal about it?
I think it's a worthwhile addition to highlight there is 3) rules which are sometimes red tape and sometimes to be broken, on top of the other 2 categories. It adds on to the original point with the addition of how to universally discover what the categories are rather than prescribe them up front.
To add to that, #3 is often explicitly encoded into the red tape as an escape hatch for foreseeable exceptional circumstances like disaster recovery and big client emergencies.
This study seems to be focused on breaking rules imposed on the organization by external entities, not rules the organization created independently to support its own objectives.
Supervisors aligned with an organization's goals likely often view such external rules with contempt. It's not surprising they tolerate or support rule breaking as long as they believe it won't be punished externally.
> study seems to be focused on breaking rules imposed on the organization by external entities
Those rules similarly fall into traffic tickets and murder charges.
That's a rather binary view and I disagree that rules always fall in either category.
Knowing _why_ a rule exists and what it's trying to prevent/achieve is much more valuable in my opinion. Wether or not to follow or bend a rule depends so much on the context.