Explanations of Corporate Crime
- Created by: rebeccamellors
- Created on: 28-11-16 13:20
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- Explanations of Corporate Crime
- Strain Theory
- Box (1983) argues that if a company can't achieve its goal of maximising profit by legal means, it may employ illegal ones instead
- When business conditions become more difficult & profitability is squeezed companies may be tempted to break the law
- Clinard &Yeager (1980) found law violations by large companies increased as their financial performance deteriorated suggesting willingness to 'innovate' to achieve goals
- Differential Association
- Sutherland (1949) sees crime as behaviour learned from others in a social context
- The less we associate with people who hold attitudes favourable of the law & the more we associate with those with criminal attitudes the more likely we are to become deviant ourselves
- If a company's culture justifies committing crimes to achieve corporate goals, employees will be socialised into this criminality
- Deviant Subcultures - groups who share a set of norms & values at odds with those of wider society
- They offer deviant solutions to their members shared problems
- Company employees face problems of achieving corporate goals & may adopt deviant means to do so
- Techniques of neutralisation - Sykes & Matza (1957) argue individuals can deviate more easily if they can produce justification to neutralise moral objections to their misbehaviour
- Sutherland (1949) sees crime as behaviour learned from others in a social context
- Labelling Theory
- Cicourel (1968) shows the MC are more able to negotiate non-criminal labels for their misbehaviour
- Nelken (2012)calls 'de-labelling' or 'non-labelling' - business & professionals often have the power to avoid labelling
- Marxism
- Corporate crime is a result of the normal functioning of capitalism
- Capitalism has successfully created what Box (1983) calls a 'mystification' - spread the ideology that corporate crime is less widespread or less harmful as WC crime
- Some corporate crime is prosecuted, its only ever the tip of the iceberg
- Box (1983) sees corporations as criminogenic because if legitimate means for profit are blocked they will resort to illegal techniques
- Strain Theory
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