Corporate Control of White-Collar Crime: A Bottom-Up Approach to Executive Deviance

Traditional top-down approaches to corporate control are ineffective when executives and other privileged individuals commit and conceal wrongdoing. Bottom-up control, such as whistleblowing, transparency, resource access, and culture, allows organizational members to monitor, measure, and evaluate executives' avoidance of deviant behaviors and influence them toward achieving organizational goals. The social license to operate is a novel approach that emphasizes social permission for business activity and brings top management to account. This book presents a novel approach to corporate control of white-collar crime based on the theory of convenience, which proposes that motive, opportunity, and willingness are the three dimensions that underlie white-collar crime in an organizational context.

Format: Hardback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 20 September 2022
Publisher: De Gruyter

Corporate control has traditionally relied on top-down approaches to management, where executives strive to influence employees and prevent wrongdoing. However, when executives and privileged individuals within the organization engage in misconduct and conceal their actions, a bottom-up approach becomes necessary.

Bottom-up control involves empowering organizational members to employ various control mechanisms, such as whistleblowing, transparency, resource access, or culture, to monitor, measure, and evaluate executives' avoidance of deviant behaviors and influence them toward achieving organizational goals efficiently and effectively.

A newly emerging perspective, the social license to operate, forms an integral part of the bottom-up strategy. This perspective emphasizes that criminalization becomes social property independent of the criminal justice system. It revolves around social permission for business activity, with the media, social movements, and citizen watchdogs exerting pressure, demanding change, and holding top management accountable.

This book presents a novel approach to corporate control of white-collar crime based on the theory of convenience. White-collar crime, committed by privileged individuals with legitimate access to resources, is financial wrongdoing driven by motives, opportunities, and willingness within an organization. Convenience theory provides a framework for understanding the factors that contribute to white-collar crime and offers strategies for prevention and intervention.

By adopting a bottom-up approach and incorporating the social license to operate, organizations can enhance their ability to prevent and address misconduct, promoting a more ethical and responsible corporate culture.

Weight: 524g
Dimension: 240 x 170 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783110998047