Serial Wrongdoers: Organizational Wrongdoing Processes, their Antecedents and Outcomes

• In Event: 477 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Communities, Institutions, and Violence

Abstract

Using questionnaire data from 112 organizations we tested a model of relationships among antecedents and outcomes of organizational wrongdoing. The rate of wrongdoing—as perceived by members—varied significantly across organizations. We found that normalization of wrongdoing and organizational values were associated with incidence of wrongdoing and incidence of whistleblowing. Incidence of wrongdoing was positively associated with incidence of whistleblowing and incidence of retaliation against whistleblowers, but was not related to positive results from investigation of wrongdoing allegations. Incidence of whistleblowing was inversely associated with retaliation. Finally, levels of trust among organization members were inversely associated with incidence of wrongdoing and incidence of retaliation. Our results suggest that some organizations are serial wrongdoers; investigating their organizational profiles may enhance our understanding of incidence of wrongdoing by organizations, as contrasted to individual instances of wrongdoing and whistleblowing within organizations. Previous research has investigated individual instances of wrongdoing and whistleblowing, but our findings suggest that theory developed for individual incidents of wrongdoing does not directly apply to organizational incidence of wrongdoing, because the two are essentially different phenomena. Understanding serial wrongdoers requires a fundamentally different method for studying organizations and theory that moves beyond discussion of individual incidents of wrongdoing to a broader exploration of organizational wrongdoing and whistleblowing processes.

Authors

• Janet P. Near, Indiana University

• Marcia P. Miceli, Georgetown University

• A.J. Brown, Griffith University