Search results

People have often asked me “how did I decide to become a criminologist?” Looking back over my life, I think two key factors played a part in my making this decision. To begin with, I am a product of the Great Depression. I was born on November 12, 1911 in Boston, Massachusetts into a middle class, New England family. My mother, who was a graduate of the Boston School of Elocution, taught public speaking. My father, who was a jovial and convivial man, did quite well for himself as a ladies wholesale shoe salesmen. However, when we moved to California he experienced some difficulties in his sales career when he tried his hand at selling shoes outside his native area of New England. He made the mistake of underestimating the value of the personal relationship that he had cultivated with shoe dealers in New England and as a result he lost a great deal of money and forced us to return to Boston. My mother made it quite clear to me that I was not to become a business man like my father. Despite his death in 1926 from pneumonia and overwork, I attended Governor Dummer Academy, a preparatory school in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which I graduated from in 1928.

In this issue of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, I am pleased to announce the publication of the first set of papers in our newly created “blue-ribbon paper” series. The series is dedicated to publishing cutting-edge papers done from a broadly defined interactionist's perspective. We particularly want to publish the works of new and seasoned scholars that display not only a creative, but also a humanistic bent. We want our series to provide scholars who think “outside the box” about the human condition with a chance to “push the envelope” in their special areas of expertise and interest without fear of having their work rejected for being too avante grade. Thus, our main objective is to help beginning and veteran interactionists whose work “breaks the mold” carve out or expand their niche in the research literature. In the immortal words of Robert Park, the journalist turned sociologist and early interactionist, we want to help scholars who fall into this category find their “spot in the sun.”

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

Malaysia straddles across the South China Sea and measures 329,758 sq. km with a total population size of about 18 million in 1994. It can be considered as a very lowly‐populated country especially in comparison to other more densely‐populated parts of Asia.

While international corporate unethical behaviors seem to permeate uncontrollably, it is nevertheless, not an incurable dilemma. The paper aims to address the key steps in achieving such governance: chief ethics officer, tone‐at‐the‐top, and whistle‐blower hotlines. With that said, this paper will also address the value of unethical behavior, both from a macro and a micro perspective.

The paper uses an archival literature review to date on international corporate governance, and its challenges to achieve international corporate ethics compliance governance are analysed.

One of the greatest challenges for international corporations is establishing a setup that involves more than the board of directors and senior management, but every employee within the corporation. A key compliance challenge is creating an international corporate culture that tolerates and encourages employees to come forward and report improper conduct.

International corporate unethical behaviors are not myths, should not remain taboo, and should be addressed immediately, for it is not an incurable dilemma. Those who do not learn from one's corporate unethical behaviors are deemed to repeat it. Those who do not learn from others' corporate unethical behaviors are deemed to commit it. Reputation takes time to establish but takes less time to ruin.

Crime, fraud, and corruption, are all nouns that pertain to the act of deception that depicts an intention to increase an opportunity in one's favor in an unlawful manner that pertains to an organization's interest and goals. Such offenses are numerous and quite costly and are now a commonplace criminal behavior within corporations. Motivations and purposes for corruption may be subjective but the legality of corruption is not. Thus, the rhetorical interpretations of corruption may be analyzed through two distinctive paradigms, the social behavioral science paradigm and the legality paradigm. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Court cases were analyzed, 70 major American corporations, in addition to a study of the largest industrial firms focused upon a two‐year period.

Based on the above samples, it was found that corporate corruptions are extremely common, but taboo to admit. The limitations to this study are accessibility, participants, and whistle‐blowers.

Implementing organizational guidelines (OG) is one appropriate and objective method in addressing corporate corruption and to confirm corporate compliance. While implementing the OG is objective, the process of implementing the OG is subjective. Subjectivity derives from opportunistic interpretations of the imperfect OG. Objective interpretation and objective implementation of the OG will confirm corporate compliance, and it is the CEO's responsibility to oversee this process.

This study focused on the issue of CEO tenure in three non‐profit community‐based organizations – each with an at least 25‐year long CEO tenure – located in two US northeastern urban centers. Using a questionnaire and a semi‐structured interview, we investigated reasons for the CEOs’ extraordinarily long tenures in office: the CEOs themselves, their organizations, and the environments in which they operated. The following were among the data findings re the CEOs: they were founders of their organization; were power brokers within the political community; managed their staff and boards of directors; possessed a vision and continued to initiate new projects; exhibited a passion for work; and had a succession plan. Some issues for future research are presented.

Prior studies have extensively explored individual examples of unethical behavior in sales organizations but focused little on repeated violation (RV) of ethical codes, particularly when managers develop salesforces. Based on social learning theory (SLT), the authors propose a multilevel model of RV antecedents and suggest that organizational influence (social cues and modeling) and individual factors (observer characteristics and behavioral outcomes) affect RV, especially with increasing recruitment of salespeople.

Using data from a leading financial company in Taiwan, the authors analyzed 1,231 records of salespeople’s misbehavior through logistic regression and average marginal effects.

Modeling in the organization (i.e. peer misconduct), observer characteristics (i.e. experience concerning job tenure and prior violations) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. information concealment violations) were all found to affect the likelihood of RV, and the interactional effect of organizational size was confirmed.

This study contributes to ethical decision-making theory by explaining aspects of RV through SLT. Its multilevel model, integrated with organizational strategy theories, adds an SLT-focused paradigm into unethical behavior research by considering vicarious learning and self-learning, alongside the reciprocal determinism of cognition, behavior, and environment.

Managers should consider socially based patterns of violation when initiating a sales business plan. The chances of RV are increased by unethical models in the organization and offenders’ potential for violations, which is reinforced by social environment.

This study clarified the key drivers of RV decision-making using SLT and identified an effective sales development strategy to maintain an ethically responsible salesforce.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connection between ethics and profitability by examining the association between published reports on white-collar crime and the share-price performance of the Malaysian-listed companies. This study aims to examine the role of white-collar crime in Malaysian-listed companies on its stock-price reaction.

Following prior research, even study methodology is used to exploit the stock-price reaction on the white-collar crime announcement. The daily bases of average abnormal returns (AARs) and cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) with an event window of 90 days prior to and after the announcements are determined. This study uses public announcement data of white-collar crimes from Malaysian Securities Commission from 1996 to 2013.

The finding indicates that an announcement of a white-collar crime has a negative abnormal return on the share price. As a result, the market does not react efficiently toward the information released regarding the incidence of a white-collar crime.

This study contributes to the managerial decision theory, where managers should be able to see a definite connection between unethical behavior and their firm’s stock. The stockholders and policymakers should find this information important in pressing for greater corporate and managerial accountability.

Unlike prior research, this paper investigates the stock-price performance due to white-collar crime announcement in the Malaysian context by using complete data set of announcement from 1996 to 2013.