White-Collar Crime and Moral Disengagement

• In Event: Theory and Research on the Demographic and Psychological Characteristics of White-Collar Offenders

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical review of Albert Bandura’s concept of moral disengagement and explores its potential application to white-collar crime offending. A brief review of the literature on the personality and psychology of white-collar criminals is presented first. Then Bandura’s moral disengagement theory is examined. Next, the construct is related to the ability of white-collar offenders to seemingly discard their moral and ethical conscience and engage in immoral activities within the corporate or organizational setting. Finally, a series of propositions and hypotheses will be developed utilizing Bandura’s scale to measure moral disengagement mechanisms as it potentially relates to white-collar offenders. These will be presented as directions for future research to not only examine who becomes a white-collar offender, but to offer potential explanations of their behaviors through the lens of moral disengagement theory, as well.

Author

• Janeen Miller, University of Cincinnati