Dirty Business

Exploring Corporate Misconduct: Analysis and Cases

Organizational misbehavior and crime have been neglected in the social sciences and business studies in particular. Material in this area is fragmentary, overly slanted to narrow external views--such as those of legal control and public policy. Dirty Business rectifies these imbalances by providing a broad sociological analysis of topics related to work, organizations, and management, together with major European case studies. This book draws on primary and secondary sources, years of teaching and interacting with managers, experiences in courses on crisis and disaster management, and insights from standard business ethics in practice. Part I critically examines the existing literature and dominant perspectives on organizational misbehavior and crime; Part II then presents 10 major cases that illustrate the analysis of the book; and Part III offers a new organizational perspective. Providing in-depth analysis of business deviance--its causes, effects, and possible solutions--blended with a rich collection of international case material, Dirty Business will be valuable reading for practitioners, students, and academics in management, organization studies, sociology, and criminology.