Risk-Profiling Corporations: Patterns and Trends of Organizational Characteristics of Corporate involvement in Atrocity Crimes since WWII

• In Event: EUROC 4. Organisational Crimes, Wartime and Atrocities

Abstract

Since WWII, numerous corporations have been involved in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the involvement in atrocity crimes of transnationally operating corporations has become a major concern worldwide, criminological contributions, in particular from a corporate crime perspective are more important than ever.
This contribution looks at ‘motivational factors’ as corporate risk factors and identify trends and patterns that are both persistent and related to specific time and space contexts. Our analyses are based on a data set with more than 200 cases of alleged corporate involvement spanning the time since 1940. We use latent cluster modelling to establish risk profiles of corporations or corporate propensities within a time-space context, and analyse outcomes. Our risk profiles combine industry type, partner/ collaborator and involvement type, our outcomes include violence/ types of crime and gains. We identify six risk-profiles across the decades from 1940 – 2020 that are conducive to corporate engagement in massive violence and discuss these results both in terms of criminological and regulatory theory and potential interrelations between the two.

Authors

• Susanne Karstedt, Griffith University

• Wim Huisman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Annika van Baar, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Rebecca Endtricht, University of Hamburg

• Lorena Rivas, Griffith University