Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-11T01:19:35.722Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sanction Threats and Appeals to Morality: Testing a Rational Choice Model of Corporate Crime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Raymond Paternoster  and
Sally Simpson
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We specify and test a rational choice model of corporate crime. This model includes measures of the perceived costs and benefits of corporate crime (for both the firm and the individual), perceptions of shame, persons' assessment of the opprobrium of the act, and contextual characteristics of the organization. Consistent with this model, we find that intentions to commit four types of corporate crime are affected by sanction threats (formal and informal), moral evaluations, and organizational factors. Net of the various incentives and disincentives for corporate crime, persons' personal moral code was found to be a very important source of inhibition. In fact, when moral inhibitions were high, considerations of the cost and benefit of corporate crime were virtually superfluous. When moral inhibitions were weak, however, persons were deterred by threats of formal and informal sanctions and by organizational context. We contend that theoretical models of corporate crime and public policy efforts must contain both instrumental (threats of punishment) and deontological (appeals to morality) factors.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , 1996 , pp. 549 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by The Law and Society Association

References

Bachman, Ronet, Paternoster, Raymond, & Ward, Sally (1992) “The Rationality of Sexual Offending: Testing a Deterrence/Rational Choice Conception of Sexual Assault,” 26 Law & Society Rev. 343.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1968) “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach,” 76 J. of Political Economy 169.Google Scholar
Bensen, Michael L. (1985) “Denying the Guilty Mind: Accounting for Involvement in a White-Collar Crime,” 23 Criminology 583.Google Scholar
Block, Michael K., Nold, Frederick C., & Sidak, Joseph G. (1981) “The Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Enforcement,” 89 J. of Political Economy 429.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John (1989) “Criminological Theory and Organizational Crime,” 6 Justice Q. 333.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John (1992) “Poverty, Power, and White-Collar Crime: Sutherland and the Paradoxes of Criminological Theory,” in Schlegel & Weisburd 1992.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John, & Geis, Gilbert (1982) “On Theory and Action for Corporate Crime Control,” 28 Crime & Delinquency 292.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John, & Makkai, Toni (1991) “Testing an Expected Utility Model of Corporate Deterrence,” 25 Law & Society Rev. 7.Google Scholar
Chambliss, William J. (1967) “Types of Deviance and the Effectiveness of Legal Sanctions,” 1967 Wisconsin Law Rev. 703.Google Scholar
Cherniak, Christopher (1986) Minimal Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clinard, Marshall B. (1952) The Black Market: A Study of White-Collar Crime. New York: Rinehart.Google Scholar
Clinard, Marshall B., & Yeager, P. C. (1980) Corporate Crime. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, James W. (1992) “The Theory of White Collar Crime: From Sutherland to the 1990s,” in Schlegel & Weisburd 1992.Google Scholar
Cressey, Donald R. (1953) Other People's Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of Embezzlement. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Cressey, Donald R. (1989) “The Poverty of Theory in Corporate Crime Research,” in Laufer, W. S. & Adler, F., eds., 1 Advances in Criminological Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Cullen, Francis T., Maakestad, W.J., & Cavender, G. (1987) Corporate Crime under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond. Cincinnati: Anderson.Google Scholar
Ermann, M. D., & Lundman, R.J. (1978) “Deviant Acts by Complex Organizations: Deviance and Social Control at the Organization Level of Analysis,” 19 Sociological Q. 55.Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai (1988) The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fisse, Brent, & Braithwaite, John (1983) The Impact of Publicity on Corporate Offenders. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.Google Scholar
Geis, Gilbert (1962) “Toward a Delineation of White-Collar Offenses,” 32 Sociological Inquiry 160.Google Scholar
Geis, Gilbert (1967) “White Collar Crime: The Heavy Electric Equipment Antitrust Case of 1961,” in Clinard, M. B. & Quinney, R., eds., Criminal Behavior Systems: A Typology. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Geis, Gilbert (1968) White-Collar Criminal: The Offender in Business and the Professions. New York: Atherton Press.Google Scholar
Grasmick, Harold G., & Bursik, Robert J. Jr. (1990) “Conscience, Significant Others, and Rational Choice: Extending the Deterrence Model,” 24 Law & Society Rev. 837.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. (1990) Econometric Analysis. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. (1992) LIMDEP User's Manual and Reference Guide, Version 6.0. Bellport, NY: Econometric Software, Inc.Google Scholar
Hagan, John, Nagel, I., & Albonetti, C. (1980) “Differential Sentencing of White-Collar Offenders in Ten Federal Circuit Courts,” 45 American Sociological Rev. 802.Google Scholar
Hartung, Frank E. (1950) “White-Collar Offenses in the Wholesale Meat Industry in Detroit,” 56 American J. of Sociology 25.Google Scholar
Jackall, Robert (1988) Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kadish, Sanford H. (1977) “Some Observations on the Use of Criminal Sanctions in the Enforcement of Economic Regulations,” in Geis, G. & Meier, R. F., eds., White-Collar Crime: Offenses in Business, Politics and the Professions. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Katz, Jack (1988) Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions of Doing Evil. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Klepper, Steven, & Nagin, Daniel (1989a) “Tax Compliance and Perceptions of the Risks of Detection and Criminal Prosecution,” 23 Law & Society Rev. 209.Google Scholar
Klepper, Steven, & Nagin, Daniel (1989b) “The Deterrent Effect of Perceived Certainty and Severity of Punishment Revisited,” 27 Criminology 721.Google Scholar
Kramer, Ronald C. (1992) “The Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion: A Case Study of State-Corporate Crime,” in Schlegel & Weisburd 1992.Google Scholar
Lasley, James R. (1988) “Toward a Control Theory of White-Collar Offending,” 4 J. of Quantitative Criminology 347.Google Scholar
Makkai, Toni, & Braithwaite, John (1991) “Criminological Theories and Regulatory Compliance,” 29 Criminology 191.Google Scholar
Makkai, Toni, & Braithwaite, John (1994) “The Dialectics of Corporate Deterrence,” 31 J. of Research in Crime & Delinquency 347.Google Scholar
McPherson, Michael S. (1984) “Limits on Self-Seeking: The Role of Morality in Economic Life,” in Colander, D. C., ed., Neoclassical Political Economy: The Analysis of Rent Seeking and DUP Activities. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Nagin, Daniel, & Paternoster, Raymond (1991) “On the Relationship of Past and Future Participation in Delinquency,” 29 Criminology 163.Google Scholar
Nagin, Daniel, & Paternoster, Raymond (1993) “Enduring Individual Differences and Rational Choice Theories of Crime,” 27 Law & Society Rev. 467.Google Scholar
Passas, N. (1990) “Anomie and Corporate Deviance,” 14 Contemporary Crises 157.Google Scholar
Paternoster, Raymond (1989) “Decisions to Participate in and Desist from Four Types of Common Delinquency: Deterrence and the Rational Choice Perspective,” 23 Law & Society Rev. 507.Google Scholar
Paternoster, Raymond, & Simpson, Sally (1993) “A Rational Choice Theory of Corporate Crime,” in Clarke, R. V. & Felson, M., eds., 5 Advances in Criminological Theory: Routine Activity and Rational Choice. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Schlegel, Kip, & Weisburd, David, eds. (1992) White Collar Crime Reconsidered. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Scott, D. W. (1989) “Policing Corporate Collusion,” 27 Criminology 559.Google Scholar
Simpson, Sally, & Koper, Christopher S. (1992) “Deterring Corporate Crime,” 30 Criminology 347.Google Scholar
Stotland, Ezra, Brintnall, Michael, L'Heureux, Andre, & Ashmore, Eva (1980) “Do Convictions Deter Home Repair Fraud?” in Geis, G. & Stotland, E., eds., White Collar Crime: Theory and Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Edwin H. (1949) White Collar Crime. New York: Dryden Press.Google Scholar
Swigert, Victoria L., & Farrell, Ronald A. (1988) “Corporate Homicide: Definitional Processes in the Creation of Deviance,” in Farrell, R. A. and Swigert, V. L., eds., Social Deviance. 3d Ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Waring, Elin, Weisburd, David, & Chayet, Ellen (1995) “White Collar Crime and Anomie,” in Adler, F. & Laufer, W., eds., 6 Advances in Criminological Theory: The Legacy of Anomie Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Weisburd, David, Wheeler, Stanton, Waring, Elin, & Bode, Nancy (1991) Crimes of the Middle Classes: White Collar Offenders in the Federal Courts. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, S., Weisburd, D., & Bode, N. (1982) “Sentencing the White-Collar Offender: Rhetoric and Reality,” 47 American Sociological Rev. 641.Google Scholar