Neutralizations, Accounts, and Regulatory Violations In Business Organizations - CANCELLED

• In Event: From Boardrooms to the Bench: Theories of Elite Criminality, Neutralizations, and Offenders

Abstract

The social construction of criminal motivation entails people’s abilities to interpret their illegal behavior in ways that minimize damage to their self-concepts or social standings. Much research on criminal motivation interprets people’s explanations for their actions as a part of narrative sense-making where actors seek to align their actions with personal and cultural expectations of appropriate action. Indeed, as C. Wright Mills argued, “The differing reasons men give for their actions are not themselves without reasons.” Neutralizations and accounts have played a prominent role in the study of white-collar crime and in criminology in general. However, little thought has been given to how neutralizations and accounts may be related to regulatory violations in business organizations. In this paper, we explore how neutralization theory and the sociology of accounts can be applied to regulatory violations committed by business organizations and their agents.

Authors

• Michael L. Benson, University of Cincinnati

• Heith Copes, University of Alabama at Birmingham