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This paper aims to examine whether being shown a testimony alleging that the perpetrator of a crime was influenced by an accomplice has an impact on the severity of the sentence given to this accomplice.

A total of 119 participants read the summary of a case of armed robbery. Two experimental conditions were adopted: the presence of a testimony suggesting the accomplice’s influence on the perpetrator in committing the crime (versus no testimony). The participants were then asked what sentence they would give the accomplice and what sentence they would have given the perpetrator of the crime, who had in fact already been sentenced. The participants rated items relating to the explanation for the crime (perception that the perpetrator had been manipulated by the presumed accomplice) and to the presumed accomplice’s intent to commit the crime.

The participants showed themselves to be harsher towards the presumed accomplice when they were shown the testimony about his influence, which reduced the disparity with the sentence they would have given to the perpetrator of the crime. Analyses of mediation show that the participants shown the testimony (as opposed to those who were not) were more likely to say that the presumed accomplice manipulated the perpetrator of the crime, leading them to be more likely to attribute to the accomplice the intent to commit the crime and to be harsher towards him.

The results of this research are discussed with a focus on naïve interpretations of influence in the very specific context of legal adjudication.

In this chapter, Arendt’s reflections on the question of personal responsibility are taken as a discussion of ‘interrupting the legal person’. Examining trials that took place after World War II, Arendt observes in ‘Some Questions of Moral Philosophy’, ‘What the courts demand … is that the defendants should not have participated’ (pp. 33–34). Following Arendt, the author argues that thinking could have enabled possible perpetrators of great evil to meet this demand, for when a person stops to think, whatever they are doing is interrupted. What is more, the person who stops to think is themselves interrupted by thinking. In brief, becoming aware of the possibility that they exist as a person in a mode other than what Ngaire Naffine calls ‘the responsible subject’, thinking disrupts the legal person. A discussion of thinking as interrupting the legal person thus illuminates not only what may turn a person away from participation in the life of a criminal state, but also what that turn means for responsibility.

Banqueroute, or fraudulent bankruptcy, is the most serious criminal offence that may arise out of insolvency proceedings, known as redressement judiciaire: this single procedure unifies earlier procedures (Statute 85–98 of 25th January, 1985). It is punishable as a ‘misdemeanour’ (or délit correctionnel) and may be committed by debtor or company directors alike. Previously French law had distinguished between negligent bankruptcy (banqueroute simple) and fradulent bankruptcy (banqueroute frauduleuse); these were drawn together by historical evolution and are merged into a limited number of instances by the statute of 25th January, 1985. A second, more diverse category of offences, may be committed by ‘procedural bodies’, the debtor's relatives, creditors, even third parties.

The investigation and enforcement sub‐group felt that its contribution to this project was best made by suggesting answers to this question:

Food supply chain theory and practice generally assumes that the business practices and processes involved are ethical, legal and value-adding when this is not always so, as demonstrated by the ongoing 2013 horse-meat scandal. Although it is ostensibly a UK-based affair, it encompasses the meat processing industry across Europe. This study, thus, aims to examine supply chain criminality and to highlight “scandal scripts” which amplify underlying issues.

A systematic review of extant literature on the scandal adds to that body of work, updating the existing narrative to include a detailed analysis of convicted “industry insiders”, highlighting supply chain issues involved in the frauds. Micro-stories of businessmen involved are presented to enable an empirical exploration of their illegal involvement in the meat trade. Using storied data from accounts of the scandal as contemporary examples, emerging themes and issues are outlined through a mixed methods qualitative approach consisting of ethical covert research, using documentary research strategy underpinned by narrative inquiry.

Media coverage perpetuated various myths notably that the fraud was carried out by “shadowy”, Eastern European “mafia figures” exploiting the extended food supply chains. The analysis is aided by the use of media hypothesis. Far from being a mafia-inspired fraud, the criminal activity was organised in nature and committed by insider businessmen. The findings demonstrate that supply chains are complex and require an understanding of storied business practices, including the ethical and illegal.

From an academic perspective, there are implications such as the dearth of academic research and policy-related studies into food fraud possibly because of the difficulty in obtaining data because of access to such enterprises and entrepreneurs necessitating reliance upon documentary sources and investigative journalism.

There are distinct policy implications, particularly the need to legislate against international criminal conspiracies and everyday ordinary organised food frauds perpetuated. Lax penalties do little to prevent such crimes which need to be taken more seriously by the authorities, and treated as major crime. In formulating food laws, rules and regulations, greater cognisance should be taken to consider how supply chains in the food industry could be better protected from predatory criminal actions.

This novel qualitative study will enable academics and practitioners to better understand illegal enterprise, food fraud and risk management from both operational and supply chain perspectives and will be useful to investigators by furthering our understanding of entrepreneurial practice and morality in the food industry.

To explore and document the emerging international market for stolen tractors and plant in the United Kingdom. Whilst this may appear to be a criminological problem relating specifically to rural crime, it is a sophisticated international criminal business organised by traditional organised crime groups (OCGs) such as the Italian, Polish and Turkish Mafia’s in conjunction with a network of criminal entrepreneurs.

Using annual statistical data provided by National Farmers Union (NFU) Mutual and Plant and Agricultural National Intelligence Unit (PANIU) and other material sourced using documentary research techniques supplemented by qualitative interviews with industry specialists we present 10 micro-case studies of rural OCGs engaged in this lucrative enterprise crime. The data is verified and authenticated using narrative inquiry techniques.

There is an entrepreneurial dimension to the crime because traditional criminal families with knowledge of rural areas and rural social capital form alliances with OCGs. The practical utility of the NFU model of entrepreneurial alliances with interested parties including the police is highlighted.

Implications for research design, ethics and the conduct of such research which are identified and discussed. These include the need to develop an investigative framework to protect academic researchers similar to guidelines in place to protect investigative journalists.

An investigative framework and the adaption of the business model canvass (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) to cover illegal business models are proposed.

Suggestions are provided for the need to legislate against international criminal conspiracies.

Uses a mixture of entrepreneurship and criminological theories to help develop an understanding of the problem from an investigative perspective.

There is an evolving literature on criminal entrepreneurship which situates it as a sub-topic of the organised crime literature and either mythologies and elevates the criminal entrepreneur to Mafioso status or ascribes it to being an activity carried out by criminal cartels; or else it trivialises and minimises it as being ‘White-Collar Criminality’. In reality, entrepreneurship pervades everyday criminal life as it pervades the everyday practices of policing. In this chapter, the author acknowledges the existence of a ‘Crimino-Entrepreneurial Interface’ populated by a cast of criminal actors including the ubiquitous ‘Businessman Gangster’. These criminally entrepreneurial actors operate within a specific milieu or ‘Enterprise Model of Crime’ and operate alongside the legitimate ‘Entrepreneurial Business Community’. Within the two conjoined systems, there is a routine exchange of interactions either parasitical or symbiotic and these coalesce to form an ecosystem of enterprise crime in which it is not only the ubiquitous criminal entrepreneur who is present but a veritable cast of entrepreneurially motivated criminal actors. As well as the established business community there is a parallel, alternative community which is situated in the so-called ‘Criminal Areas’ where the traditional criminal fraternity carry out their nefarious entrepreneurial activities. Within such areas, an underclass exists which provides the criminal workforce for organised crime. The traditional criminal ecosystem is the natural habitat for the police, and it is around this activity that police are traditionally organised. A perpetual cycle of crime is set up which requires policing, but this leaves an unpoliced void which the entrepreneurial criminals exploit. It is necessary to understand the criminal places and spaces exploited by Organised Crime and what roles other criminal actors and facilitators play in the enterprise model. It is also necessary to understand the so-called ‘Perverse Model of Policing’ which distorts and magnifies the true scale of the problem and to appreciate how Serious and Organised Crime corrupt and infiltrate the legitimate ‘upperworld’ before one can understand the true scale of entrepreneurialism in policing and criminal contexts.

This paper aims to revisit paradigmatic depictions of organized criminal behavior. Unveiling shortcomings, it asks how contingent manifestations of organized crime can be better grasped by borrowing analytical tools from organizational scholarship.

The potential for cross-disciplinary fertilization is showcased by reflecting recent transformations of Mexican organized crime. Over a year of close-proximity fieldwork, exclusive first-hand empirical data were gathered on Los Caballeros Templarios, one of Mexico’s principal criminal organizations. Interviews with its leaders were carried out and participant observation conducted amongst local communities.

Criminal organizations have turned to the local to generate resources vital for their survival. Emerging as forces of alternative governance, the strategic use of organizational legitimacy has gained unprecedented prominence. It acts as an interface for reciprocal criminal-organization–environment influences. Largely neglected, it has driven the mutation of Mexican organized crime and the country’s armed conflict altogether.

The reported findings are of limited scope insofar as they are derived from in-depth data on a single case. Future research would ideally generate such data on further cases, enabling greater theorization qua cross-comparison.

Informed by rare first-hand empirical data, this paper offers exclusive insights into the on-the-ground realities of Mexican organized crime and its role in the fragmentation of social order and governance. This is of interest for scholars, the wider public and policymakers alike. The innovative conceptual approach is easily replicable so as to support similar enquiries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the processes of open innovation in the context of a fraudulent organization and, using the infamous Bernie L. Madoff Investment Securities fraud case, introduces and elaborates upon the concept of dark open innovation. The paper’s conceptual framework is drawn from social capital theory, which is grounded on the socio-economics of Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam and is employed in order to make sense of the processes that occur within dark open innovation.

Given the self-evident access issues, this paper is necessarily based on archival and secondary sources taken from the court records of Madoff v. New York – including victim impact statements, the defendant’s Plea Allocution, and academic and journalistic commentaries – which enable the identification of the processes involved in dark open innovation. Significantly, this paper also represents an important inter-disciplinary collaboration between academic scholars variously informed by business and history subject domains.

Although almost invariably cast as a positive process, innovation can also be evidenced as a negative or dark force. This is particularly relevant in open innovation contexts, which often call for the creation of extended trust and close relationships. This paper outlines a case of dark open innovation.

A key implication of this study is that organizational innovation is not automatically synonymous with human flourishing or progress. This paper challenges the automatic assumption of innovation being positive and introduces the notion of dark open innovation. Although this is accomplished by means of an in-depth single case, the findings have the potential to resonate in a wide spectrum of situations.

Innovation is a concept that applies across a range of organization and management domains. Criminals also innovate; thus, the paper provides valuable insights into the organizational innovation processes especially involved in relation to dark open innovation contexts.

It is important to develop and fully understand the possible wider meanings of innovation and also to recognize that innovation – particularly dark open innovation – does not always create progress. The Caveat Emptor warning is still relevant.

The paper introduces the novel notion of dark open innovation.