The Scarcity-Munificence Component of Organizational Environments and The Commission of Illegal Acts

Staw, Barry M.; Szwajkowski, Eugene

doi:10.2307/2391995

Cited by 445 publications

(209 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Part of the explanation is that large profits may be made through legitimate organizational activity. For whatever advantages organization provides, it remains the case that illegal behavior is found more often in newer, 46 smaller, 4 7 less profitable 48 organizations on the margins of more central business networks. 49 In part for this reason, we doubt the capacity of increased penalties alone to have much influence on the kind of behavior we are studying.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

Wheeler

Rothman²

1982

Michigan Law Review

111

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

Wheeler

Rothman²

1982

Michigan Law Review

111

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“…Quantitative studies using organizations as the units of analysis (usually corporations) consistently have identified a correlation between competition, economic strain, and violative behavior (Sutherland, 1949;Staw and Swajkowski, 1975;Clinard and Yeager, 1980;Simpson, 1986). The impossibility of micro-analysis in this research notwithstanding, the persistent relationship between economic strain and violative behavior has lent credibility to an amoral calculator model of decision making that goes like this: when an organization experiences structural strain to achieve its goals, individuals acting in their organization roles weigh the costs and benefits of their actions, choosing to violate laws and rules to attain organization goals.…”

Section: Research Challenges To the Rational Choice/deterrence Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Choice, Situated Action, and the Social Control of Organizations

1998

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The legal and administrative apparatus responsible for the social control of organizations relies extensively on the deterrent effects of punishment. This strategy presumes a rational choice model of organizational misconduct that de-contextualizes decision making, emphasizing consequences while ignoring how preferences are formed. I raise three challenges to the rational choice/deterrence model of social control: 1) research and theory on decision making, 2) a sociological paradigm that situates individual action in a structure/culture/agency nexus that influences interpretation, meaning, and action at the local level, and 3) an analysis of the Challenger launch decision at NASA as situated action, showing how structure, culture, and history shaped preferences and choice. These challenges suggest a need to reorient regulatory activity toward the social context of decision making. I conclude with a research agenda to explore the relationship between situated action, preference formation, rational choice, and decisions to violate in organizational misconduct.Management decisions in the business world that value competitive and economic success more highly than the well-being of workers, consumers, or the general public so often have come to public attention that today's most widely accepted model of corporate criminality portrays managers of profit-seeking organizations as "amoral calculators" whose illegal actions are motivated by rational calculation of costs and opportunities (Kagan and Scholz, 1984). Driven by pressures from the competitive environment, managers will violate the law to attain desired organizational goals unless the anticipated legal penalties (the expected costs weighed against the probability of delaying or avoiding them) exceed additional benefits the firm could gain by violation.The amoral calculator model locates the cause of business misconduct in the calculations of individual decision makers. It reflects the logic of sociological rational choice theory (Hechter, 1987;Friedman and Hechter, 1988; J.S. Coleman, 1990; Hechter and Kanazawa 1997), but with one important distinction. When decision makers' calculations of costs and benefits are tainted by self-interest, economics, or politics so that intentional

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“…As the business environment is not munificent (Staw and Szwajkowski 1975), organizations have to compete for resources in the labor market (for employees), financial market (for capital), supply market (for materials), and customer market (for sales). Within a business organization, scarcity is also a factor, in the sense that time, money, knowledge, and attention is limited (Cyert and March 1963;Hambrick and Snow 1977;Ocasio 1997).…”

Section: Pressures and Temptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Battle for Business Ethics: A Struggle Theory

Kaptein

2015

J Bus Ethics

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To be and to remain ethical requires struggle from organizations. Struggling is necessary due to the pressures and temptations management and employees encounter in and around organizations. As the relevance of struggle for business ethics has not yet been analyzed systematically in the scientific literature, this paper develops a theory of struggle that elaborates on the meaning and dimensions of struggle in organizations, why and when it is needed, and what its antecedents and consequences are. An important conclusion is that the greater the ethics gap and opposing forces, the greater the struggle required. Viewing business ethics as struggle has several implications for theory and practice.

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The Scarcity-Munificence Component of Organizational Environments and The Commission of Illegal Acts

Cited by 445 publications

References 17 publications

The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

Rational Choice, Situated Action, and the Social Control of Organizations

The Battle for Business Ethics: A Struggle Theory

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