Diagnosis and Treatment of Corporate Crime Revisited: Looking Outside the Organization for Malfeasance Catalysts

• In Event: Understanding Corporate and Organizational Crime

Abstract

In 2009, I wrote/published an article discussing how the culture of organizations should be examined to understand why corporate crime and general malfeasance occurs as business as usual (Hansen, 2009, Journal of Financial Crime). My conclusions included a call for managers to examine the informal structure within organizations to gain better understanding of why white-collar crime may occur, even in the face of formal corporate rules and regulation. On the heels of the revelations that misbehaving companies tend to have camp followers (“corporate copycats”), I am revisiting this phenomena to examine what external influences within industry niches may contribute to general malfeasance, as in cases of regulatory irregularities, with a focus on hedge funds through the lenses of Routine Activities theory as well as Differential Association (Sutherland).

Author

• Laura Lynn Hansen, Western New England University