CEOs and White-Collar Crime

A Convenience Perspective

verfasst von: Petter Gottschalk

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book aims to bridge the gap between general CEO research, which is traditionally focused on positive aspects of leadership, and lesser understood research into CEO misconduct and crime. Gottschalk introduces convenience theory as an integrated explanation for CEO involvement in white-collar crime.
The chief executive officer is a unique position within an organization in terms of power and influence, role and behavior, compensation and benefits, and conflict and competition. The convenience perspective suggests that motivation (personal and organizational goals), opportunity (offense and concealment in an organizational context), as well as behavior (lack of control and neutralization of guilt) make financial crime a convenient option to avoid threats and to exploit opportunities. A thorough and methodical study, this book will be of special interest to scholars of corporate social responsibility and criminological theory.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

This book aims to bridge the gap between general research on chief executive officers, which is traditionally focused on positive aspects of leadership, and research into CEO misconduct and crime.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 2. Chief Executive Officers

Abstract

A number of characteristics make the role of a CEO distinctly different from other leadership and management roles. Being a CEO means bearing full responsibility for an organization’s success or failure, but being unable to control most of what will determine it; having more authority than anyone else in the organization, but being unable to wield it without unhappy consequences. CEOs’ mindsets and strategic beliefs are likely to be instantiated to a significant degree in their firms’ current strategies.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 3. White-Collar Criminals

Abstract

There is probably no single occupation in the world that has been met with a more systematic degree of naivety from its employers than the chief executive. It has been argued that goal-oriented management is a management approach that can inherently bring about more white-collar crime. Especially when goals are ambitious and the CEO is personally responsible for goal achievement and faces negative personal consequences of non-achievement, the CEO might tend to use both legal and illegal means in the struggle to achieve goals.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 4. Convenient Financial Motive

Abstract

Convenience theory suggests that white-collar crime by CEOs occurs because of a financial motive, an organizational opportunity, and an acceptable deviant behavior. The Russian-American psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchy of human needs. Needs start at the bottom with physiological need, need for security, social need, and need for respect and self-realization. When basic needs such as food and shelter are satisfied, then the person moves up the pyramid to satisfy needs for safety and control over own life situation.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 5. Convenient Organizational Opportunity

Abstract

CEOs have access to resources that enable white-collar crime in convenient ways. White-collar offenders have access to resources to commit financial crime in convenient ways. Furthermore, they have access to resources to conceal crime as well as to prevent prosecution if they are detected. Resource-based theory postulates that differences in individuals’ opportunities can be explained by the extent of resource access and the ability to combine and exploit resources. A resource is an enabler that is used to satisfy human needs. A resource has utility and limited availability.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 6. Convenient Deviant Behavior

Abstract

Neutralization explains why many white-collar offenders think it is quite okay what they will do, what they are doing, and what they have done. They deny responsibility, damage, and victim. They condemn their critics, and they claim loyalty to overriding considerations. White-collar offenders reduce and eliminate their feeling of guilt by claiming that everyone else does it, that it is a mistake that the act is criminalized, and that they made a trade-off where the offense turned out to be the best alternative.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 7. CEO Blame Games

Abstract

The blame game is a potential aspect of investigation reports in practice, where examiners complete the report by placing the blame for misconduct or crime on individual(s), which the client who ordered the investigation might prefer to see blamed for it. The mandate for a private investigation can be part of the blame game, where the client wants to blame somebody while at the same time diverge attention from somebody else.

Petter Gottschalk

Chapter 8. Conclusion

Abstract

Based on previous research (Gottschalk, Explaining white-collar crime: the concept of convenience in financial crime investigations, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016), this book has made a novel contribution to the development of convenience theory as a framework to understand CEOs in white-collar crime. The framework integrates a number of well-known theories from criminology and other fields to explain white-collar offenses in terms of economical motive, organizational opportunity, and deviant behavior.

Petter Gottschalk

Backmatter

Titel: CEOs and White-Collar Crime
verfasst von: Petter Gottschalk
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-55935-3
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55934-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55935-3