Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

When Corporations Cause Harm: A Critical View of Corporate Social Irresponsibility and Corporate Crimes

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Corporations perform actions that can inflict harm with different levels of intensity, from death to material loss, to both companies’ internal and external stakeholders. Research has analysed corporate harm using the notions of corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR) and corporate crime. Critical management studies (CMS) have been subjecting management and organizational practices and knowledge to critical analysis, and corporate harm has been one of the main concerns of CMS. However, CMS has rarely been deployed to analyse CSIR and corporate crime. Thus, the aim of this paper is to critically analyse the perspectives of CSIR and corporate crimes on corporate harm via CMS in general and postcolonial studies in particular. The paper contributes by arguing that research on CSIR and corporate crime could be perceived as producing research that does not challenge the essence of contemporary corporation profit-seeking activities that ultimately produces corporate harm. We argue that CSIR and corporate crime are ideologies that assist in disguising the contradiction between producing shareholder value and the social good that is at the heart of the modern corporation system and the current economic system. Furthermore, the postcolonial view of CSIR and corporate crime highlights how they are based on a Western-centric view of corporate harm that ignores the realities and perspectives of the Global South, especially in situations where corporate harm leads to death in the Global South.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdalla, M., & Faria, A. (2017). Em defesa da opção decolonial em administração/gestão. CADERNOS EBAPE.BR (FGV), 15(4), 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adanhounme, A. B. (2011). Corporate social responsibility in postcolonial Africa: Another civilizing mission? Journal of Change Management, 11(1), 91–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adler, P. S. (2002). Critical in the name of whom and what? Organization, 9(3), 387–395.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adler, P. S. (2007). The future of critical management studies: A Paleo-Marxist critique of labour process theory. Organization Studies, 28(9), 1313–1345.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adler, P. S., Forbes, L. C., & Willmott, H. (2007). Critical management studies. In J. P. Walsh & A. P. Brief (Eds.), The academy of management annals (pp. 119–179). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 38(4), 932–968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alamgir, F., & Banerjee, S. B. (2018). Contested compliance regimes in global production networks: Insights from the Bangladesh garment industry. Human Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718760150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alcadipani, R., Khan, F., Gantman, E., & Nkomo, S. (2012). Southern voices in management and organization knowledge. Organization, 19(2), 131–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvesson, M., Bridgman, T., & Willmott, H. (2009). Handbook of critical management studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (1992). Critical management studies. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (1996). Making sense of management. A critical introduction. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2016). Social identification and corporate irresponsibility: A model of stakeholder punitive intentions. British Journal of Management, 27(3), 583–605.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aras, G., & Crowther, D. (2010). A handbook of governance and social responsibility. Surrey: Gower Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, J. S. (1977). Social irresponsibility in management. Journal of Business Research, 5(3), 185–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (2006). Post-colonial Studies: The key concepts. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aven, B. L. (2015). The paradox of corrupt networks: An analysis of organizational crime at Enron. Organization Science, 26(4), 980–996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakan, J. (2005). The Corporation: The pathological pursue of power. Canada: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A., Caprara, G., & Zsolnai, L. (2000). Corporate transgressions through moral disengagement. Journal of Human Values, 6(1), 57–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee, S. B. (2008). Necrocaptalism. Organization Studies, 29(12), 541–1563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee, S. B. (2014). A critical perspective on corporate social responsibility: Towards a global governance framework. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 10(1/2), 84–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee, S. B. (2017). Transnational power and translocal governance: The politics of corporate responsibility. Human Relations, 71(6), 796–821.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barley, S. (2007). Corporations, Democracy and the public good. Journal of Management Inquiry, 16(3), 201–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baucus, M. S., & Dworkin, T. M. (1991). What is corporate crime? It is not illegal corporate behavior. Law and Policy, 13(3), 231–244.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baucus, M. S., & Near, J. P. (1994). Can illegal corporate behavior be predicted? An event history analysis. The Academy of Management Journal, 34(1), 9–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M. L., & Cullen, F. T. (1998). Combating corporate crime: Local prosecutors at work. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blowfield, M., & Frynas, J. G. (2005). Setting new agendas: Critical perspectives on corporate social responsibility in the developing world. International Affairs, 81(3), 499–513.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boussebaa, M., Sinha, S., & Gabriel, Y. (2014). Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective. Journal International Business Studies., 45(9), 1152–1169. https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braithwaite, J. (1985). White-collar crime. American Review of Sociology, 11, 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braithwaite, J. (1989). Criminological theory and organizational crime. Justice Quarterly, 6(3), 333–358.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brammer, S., & Pavelin, S. (2005). Corporate reputation and an insurance motivation for corporate social investment. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 20, 39–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calvano, L. (2008). Multinational corporations and local communities: A critical analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 82(4), 793–805.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castka, P., Balzarova, M. A., Bamber, C. J., & Sharp, J. M. (2004). How can SME’s effectively implement the CSR agenda? A UK case study perspective. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 11(3), 140–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chirayatg, V., Eslinger, K., & Zolt, E. De. (2002). Differential association, multiple normative standards, and the increasing incidence of corporate deviance in an era of globalization. Journal of Business Ethics, 41(1/2), 131–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N. (2005). Chomsky on anarchism. Edinburgh: AK Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ciepley, D. A. (2018). Can corporations be held to the public interest, or even to the law? Journal of Business Ethics, 100, 100. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3173810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cilliberti, F., Pontradolof, P., & Scozzi, B. (2008). Investigating corporate social responsibility in supply chains: And SME perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(15), 1579–1588.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinard, M. B. (1990). Corporate corruption: The abuse of power. New York: Praeger Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinard, R., & Quinney, R. (1973). Criminal behavior systems: A typology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinard, M. B., & Yeager, P. C. (1980). Corporate crime. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinard, M. B., et al. (1979). Illegal corporate behavior. Washington, DC: Department of Justice.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, J. W. (1987). Toward an integrated theory of white-collar crime. The American Journal of Sociology, 93(2), 406–439.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daboub, A. J., Rasheed, A. M. A., Priem, R. L., & Gray, D. A. (1995). Top management team characteristics and corporate illegal activity. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 138–170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamantis, M. E. (2018). Corporate essence and identity in criminal law. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3892-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donziger, S. R. (1996). The Real War on Crime: Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission, Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data. New York: HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrnström-Fuentes, M. (2016). Delinking legitimacies—a pluriversal perspective on political CSR. Journal of Management Studies, 53, 433–462.

    Google Scholar 

  • Etzioni, A., & Mitchell, D. (2007). Corporate Crime. In H. Pontell & G. Geis (Eds.), International handbook of white-collar corporate crime (pp. 187–199). New York: Springer-Science Business Media.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faria, A., & Guedes, A. L. (2010). Introduction: What is international management? In A. L. Guedes & A. Faria (Eds.), International management and international relations: A critical perspective from Latin America (pp. 1–6). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira, A., & Ribeiro, I. (2017). Are you willing to pay the price? The impact of corporate social (ir)responsibility on consumer behavior towards national and foreign brands. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 16(1), 63–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferry, W. H. (1962). Forms of irresponsibility. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 343(1), 65–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisse, B., & Braithwaite, J. (1993). Corporations, crime and accountability. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, P., & Banerjee, S. B. (2016). When performativity fails: Implications for critical management studies. Human Relations, 69(2), 257–276.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, P., Roberts, J., & Carsten, C. (2013). In search of corporate social responsibility: Introduction to special issue. Organization, 20(3), 337–348.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fournier, V., & Grey, C. (2000). At the critical moment: Conditions and prospects for critical management studies. Human Relations, 53(1), 7–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freitag, A. (2008a). Staking claim: Public relations leaders needed to shape CSR policy. Public Relations Quarterly, 52(1), 37–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freitag, A. (2008b). Staking claim: Public relations leaders needed to shape CSR policy. Public Relations Quarterly, 52(1), 37–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frenkel, M., & Shenhav, Y. (2006). From binarism back to hibridity: A postcolonial reading of management and organization studies. Organization Studies, 27(6), 855–876.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine, pp. 32–33, 122–124.

  • Gottfredson, M. R., & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, E. (2009). Corporate lawbreaking and civil justice. White Paper, No. 18. New York: Center for Justice and Democracy.

  • Grappi, S., Romani, S., & Bagozzi, R. P. (2013). Consumer response to corporate irresponsible behavior: Moral emotions nand virtues. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1814–1821.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grasmick, H. G., Tittle, C. R., Bursik, R. J., & Arneklev, B. J. (1993). Testing the core empirical implication of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30(1), 5–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, S. P. (2006). The meaning of white-collar crime. In S. P. Green (Ed.), Lying, cheating, and stealing: A moral theory of ‘white-collar crime’ (pp. 9–20). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood, M. (2007). Stakeholder engagement: Beyond the myth of corporate responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 74, 315–327.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greve, H. R., Palmer, D., & Pozner, J. (2010). Organizations gone wild: The causes, processes, and consequences of organizational misconduct. The Academy of Management Annal, 4(1), 53–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grey, C., & Willmott, H. (Eds.). (2005). Critical management studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, O. H., III, & Miller, B. L. (2011). OxyContin and a regulation deficiency of the pharmaceutical industry: Rethinking state-corporate crime. Critical Criminology, 19(3), 213–226.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanlon, G., & Fleming, P. (2009). Updating the critical perspective on corporate social responsibility. Sociology Compass, 3(6), 937–948.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heath, R. L. (2010). The SAGE handbook of public relations. New Jersey: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herbert, C. L., Green, G. S., & Larragoite, V. (1998). Organizational offending: A comment on Reed and Yeager. Criminology, 36(4), 867–885.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herzig, C., & Moon, J. (2013). Discourses on corporate social ir/responsibility in the financial sector. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1870–1880.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jack, G., Westwood, R., Srinivas, N., & Sardar, Z. (2011). Broadening and re-asserting a postcolonial interrogative space in organization studies. Organization, 18(3), 275–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, B., Bowd, R., & Tench, R. (2009). Corporate irresponsibility and corporate social responsibility: Competing realities. Social Responsibility Journal, 5(3), 300–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keig, D. L., Brouthers, L. E., & Marshall, V. B. (2015). Formal and informal corruption environments and multinational enterprise social irresponsibility. Journal of Management Studies, 52(1), 89–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keys, T., & Malnight, T. (2011). Corporate clout: The influence of the world’s largest 100 economic entities. London: Strategy Dynamics Global Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kölbel, J. F., Busch, T., & Jancso, L. M. (2017). How media coverage of corporate social irresponsibility increases financial risk. Strategic Management Journal, 38(11), 2266–2284.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolk, A. (2016). The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 23–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, R. C. (1984). Corporate criminality: The development of an idea. In E. Hochstedler (Ed.), Corporation as criminal. Beverly Hills: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T., & Deetz, S. (2009). Critical theory and corporate social responsibility: Can/should we get beyond cynical reasoning? In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, & S. D. Siegal (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility (pp. 173–196). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lange, D., & Washburn, N. T. (2012). Understanding attributions of corporate social irresponsibility. Academy of Management Review, 37(2), 300–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lansing, P., & Hatfield, D. (1985). Corporate control through the criminal system: An alternative proposal. Journal of Business Ethics, 4(5), 409–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lepoutre, J., & Heene, A. (2006). Investigating the impact of firm size on small business social responsibility: A critical review. Journal of Business Ethics, 67(3), 257–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin-Hi, N., & Blumberg, I. (2011). The relationship between corporate governance, global governance, and sustainable profits: lessons learned from BP. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, 11(5), 571–584.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin-Hi, N., & Muller, K. (2013). The CSR bottom-line: Preventing corporate social irresponsibility. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1928–1936.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linstead, S., Marechal, G., & Griffin, R. W. (2014). Theorizing and researching the dark side of organization. Organization Studies, 35(2), 165–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lynch, M. J., Mcgurrin, D., & Fenwick, M. (2004). Disappearing act: The representation of corporate crime research in criminological literature. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32(5), 389–398.

    Google Scholar 

  • Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). Corporate crime and the discursive deletion of responsibility: A case study of the Paddington rail crash. Crime Media Culture, 9(1), 63–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marens, R. (2010). Destroying the village to save it: Corporate social responsibility, labour relations, and the rise and fall of American hegemony. Organization, 17(6), 743–766.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazzei, J. M., Gangloff, K. A., & Shook, K. L. (2015). Examining multi-level effects on corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility. Management and Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 10(3), 163–184.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGee, J. A., & Byington, J. R. (2009). The threat of global white-collar crime. Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance, 20(6), 25–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mena, S., Fleming, P., Rintamäki, J., & Spiccer, A. (2016). On the forgetting of corporate irresponsibility. The Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 720–738.

    Google Scholar 

  • Michalowski, R. J., & Kramer, R. C. (1987). The space between laws: The problem of corporate crime in a transnational context. Social Problems, 34(1), 34–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Michalowski, R. J., & Kramer, R. C. (2006). The critique of power. In R. J. Michalowski & R. C. Kramer (Eds.), State-corporate crime: Wrongdoing at the intersection of business and government (pp. 1–17). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mignolo, W. D. (2000). Local histories, global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mir, R., & Mir, A. (2013). The colony writes back: Organization as an early champion of non-western organizational theory. Organization, 20(1), 91–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mir, R. A., & Mir, A. H. (2015). The ‘iron’ in the iron cage: Retheorizing the MNC as a colonial space. In A. Prasad, P. Prasad, A. Mills, & J. H. Mills (Eds.), The Routledge companion to critical management studies (pp. 345–358). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mon, W. (2002). Causal factors of corporate crime in Taiwan: Qualitative and quantitative findings. International Journal of Offender therapy and Comparative Criminology, 46(2), 183–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullerat, R. (2009). International corporate social responsibility. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, P. E., & Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2013). Corporate social responsibility and corporate social irresponsibility: Introduction to a special topic section. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ormiston, M. E., & Wong, E. M. (2013). License to ill: The effects of corporate social responsibility and CEO moral identity on corporate social irresponsibility. Personell Psychology, 66(4), 861–893.

    Google Scholar 

  • Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2008). International management research meets ‘The Rest of the World’. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 964–974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2018). CSR as gendered neocoloniality in the global south. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3798-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Payne, B. K. (2012). White-collar crime. The essentials. Georgia: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, C. L., & Manz, C. C. (2011). Leadership centrality and corporate social ir-responsibility (CSIR): The potential ameliorating effects of self and shared leadership on CSIR. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(4), 563–579.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, F., & Tombs, S. (1999). Toxic capitalism: Corporate crime and the chemical industry. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrow, C. (1991). A society of organizations. Theory and Society, 20(6), 725–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, A. (2003). Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis: A critical reader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, A. (2012). Against the grain: Advances in postcolonial organization studies. Frederiksberg: Copenhagen Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, A., & Mills, A. J. (2010). Critical management studies and business ethics: A synthesis and three research trajectories for the coming decade. Journal of Business Ethics, 94(2), 227–237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, P., Prasad, A., Mills, A. J., & Helms Mills, J. (Eds.). (2016). The Routledge companion to critical management studies. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putrevu, S., McGuire, J., Siegel, D. S., & Smith, D. M. (2012). Corporate social responsibility, irresponsibility, and corruption: Introduction to special section. Journal of Business Research, 65(1), 1618–1621.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, eurocentrism, and Latin America. Neplanta: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riera, M., & Iborra, M. (2017). Corporate social irresponsibility: Review and conceptual boundaries. European Journal of Management and Business Economics, 26(2), 146–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez, I. (2001). Reading subalterns across texts, disciplines, and theories: From representation to recognition. In I. Rodriguez (Ed.), The Latin American subaltern studies reader. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandoval, M. (2015). From CSR to RSC: A contribution to the CritiquE of the political economy of corporate social responsibility. Review of Radical Political Economics, 47(4), 608–624.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2011). The new political role of business in a globalized world: A review of a new perspective on CSR and its implications for the firm, governance and democracy. Journal of Management Studies, 48(4), 899–929.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schrager, L. S., Short, J. R., & Short, J. F., Jr. (1978). Toward a sociology of organizational crime. Social Problems, 25(4), 407–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwarze, S. (2003). Corporate-state irresponsibility, critical publicity, and asbestos exposure in Libby, Montana. Management Communication Quarterly, 16(4), 625–632.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, S. P. (1990). Collaring the crime, not the criminal: Reconsidering the concept of white-collar crime. American Sociological Review, 35(3), 346–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shover, N., & Hochstetler, A. (2002). Cultural explanation and organizational crime. Crime, Law and Social Change, 37(1), 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sionneau, B. (2010). Legitimating corporate global irresponsibility. Journal of Global Responsibility, 1(2), 330–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snider, L. (2000). The sociology of corporate crime: An obituary: (or: Whose knowledge claim have legs?). Theoretical Criminology, 4(2), 169–206.

    Google Scholar 

  • Song, C., & Hun-Han, S. (2017). Stock market reaction to corporate crime: Evidence from South Korea. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(2), 323–351.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staw, B. M., & Szwajkowski, E. (1975). The scarcity-munificence component of organizational environments and the commission of illegal acts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20(3), 345–354.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stookey, S. (2008). The future of critical management studies: Populism and elitism. Organization, 15(6), 922–924.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strike, V. M., Gao, J., & Bansal, P. (2006). Being good while being bad: Social responsibility and the international diversification of US firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 37(6), 850–862.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland, E. H. (1940). White-collar criminality. American Sociological Review, 5(1), 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland, E. H. (1941). Crime and business. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science., 217(1), 112–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland, E. H. (1944). Is “white collar crime” crime? American Sociological Review, 10(2), 132–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweetin, V. H., Knowles, L. L., Summey, J. H., & McQueen, K. S. (2013). Willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for corporate social irresponsibility. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1822–1830.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szwajkowski, E. (1985). Organizational illegality: Theoretical integration and illustrative application. The Academy of Management Review, 10(3), 558–567.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tappan, P. Q. (1947). Who is the criminal? American Sociological Review, 12(1), 96–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tench, R., Bowd, R., & Jones, B. (2007). Perceptions and perspectives: Corporate social responsibility and the media. Journal of Communication Management, 11(4), 348–370.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tombs, S., & Whyte, D. (2002). Unmasking the crimes of the powerful. Critical Criminology, 11(1), 217–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vadera, A. K., & Aguilera, R. V. (2015). The evolution of vocabularies and its relation to investigation of white-collar crimes: An institutional work perspective. Journal Business of Ethics, 128(1), 21–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan, D. (2007). Beyond macro- and micro-levels of analysis, organizations, and the cultural fix. In H. N. Pontell & G. L. Geis (Eds.), International handbook of white-collar and corporate crime (pp. 3–23). Boston: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vining, J. (2003). Corporate crime and the religious sensibility. Punishment and Society, 5(3), 313–325.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, T., Bicen, P., & Hall, Z. R. (2008). The dark side of retailing: Towards a scale of corporate social irresponsibility. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 36(2), 124–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters, R. (2009). Bhopal. Corporate crime and harms on the powerfull. Global Social Policy, 9(3), 324–327.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, G., & Zinkin, J. (2008). The effect of culture on consumers’ willingness to punish irresponsible corporate behaviour: Applying Hofstede’s typology to the punishment aspect of corporate social responsibility. Business Ethics: A European Review, 17(2), 210–226.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willmott, H. (1995). The odd couple? Re-engineering business processes; managing human relations. New Technology, Work and Employment, 10(2), 89–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willmott, H. (2008). Critical management and global justice. Organization, 15(6), 927–931.

    Google Scholar 

  • Windsor, D. (2013). Corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility: A positive theory approach. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1937–1944.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, T. E. (2009). Meltdown. A free-market look at why the stock market collapsed, the economy tanked, and government bailouts will make things worse. Washington: Regnery Publication.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, J. (2014). The antecedents of corporate social and environmental irresponsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(5), 286–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yousfi, H. (2014). Rethinking hybridity in postcolonial contexts: What changes and what persists? The Tunisian case of Poulina’s managers, Organization Studies, 35(3), 393–421.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahra, S. A., Priem, R. L., & Rasheed, A. A. (2005). The antecedents and consequences of top management fraud. Journal of Management, 31(06), 803–828.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fundação Getulio Vargas/EAESP, 474 Itapeva St., São Paulo, Brazil

    Rafael Alcadipani

  2. Fundação Getulio Vargas – EAESP, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, 2121 João Naves de Avila Av., Uberlândia, Brazil

    Cíntia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros

Authors
  1. Rafael Alcadipani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Cíntia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rafael Alcadipani.

Ethics declarations

Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

We are very grateful to Maria Fernanda Cavalcanti, the associate editor and the anonymous reviewers who gave a lot of insightful feedbacks to our paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Alcadipani, R., de Oliveira Medeiros, C.R. When Corporations Cause Harm: A Critical View of Corporate Social Irresponsibility and Corporate Crimes. J Bus Ethics 167, 285–297 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04157-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04157-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation