| In today's business world, it would be difficult to ignore the media coverage regarding white-collar crime. Unfortunately, while these stories discuss the financial and devastating impact on corporations and individuals victimized by white-collar criminal behavior, little empirical research has been conducted. The literature in criminology, sociology, psychology, and business is empirically limited on white-collar crime. Rather, most criminally-based research focuses its efforts on street crimes. In a meta-study on criminology and management on white-collar crime, Nichols (2000) summarizes the research as discouragingly sparse.; The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by examining relevant theories relating white-collar crime and various constructs associated with said theories. Although frameworks with normative clarification are an integral part of research, few have examined the illegal behavior and moderating variables that contribute to the propensity of white-collar crime. This research is an interdisciplinary study incorporating criminology, sociology, psychology, and business and is exploratory in nature but founded theoretically.; Previous data collection on white-collar crime has been substantially based on secondary data such as court files. Because of the nature of the criminal court system, most convicted persons, while originally charged with several indictments, are plea-bargained down to one or two charges. Thus, only a limited picture of these offenders has been possible. Fraud investigators have been used to collect data for research but this has been done using a case method without the benefit of standardized questioning. Further, obtaining permission and collection of primary data from the subjects themselves is a difficult, long, and agonizing process that entails going through the federal government's bureaucracy, which limits the likelihood of receiving first-hand, standardized data on white-collar criminals. This work attempts to remedy that.; This project explores three key questions: (1) what corporate cultures increase/decrease the propensity for a marketer to commit white-collar crime; (2) what personality characteristics increase/decrease the propensity to commit white-collar crime and; (3) what social (family, peers, etc.) variables increase/decrease the propensity to commit white-collar crime?; This research surveyed primary data from a population of convicted white-collar criminals, at three targeted federal institutions, using established scales to measure perceptions of corporate culture, social factors, and individual personality. Multiple discriminant analysis and other various statistical techniques were used to answer the above research questions. |
