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The purpose of this paper is to focus upon organized criminals as an enterprising community and as enterprising people. Organized crime is a global phenomenon that concentrates upon the development of both sustainable personal prosperity and criminal culture as they define it. Such criminal businesses and the business of criminality go far beyond simple economic and capitalist criteria and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ability play a significant part in creating criminal wealth. Indeed, it is part of committed criminality. Whilst acknowledging the crime‐entrepreneurship nexus the literature seldom seeks to understand entrepreneurial behaviour practiced in a criminal context. This paper therefore examines entrepreneurial behaviour in criminals looking for useful theoretical perspectives and distilling key practices by seeking to understand entrepreneurial behaviour in organized criminals.

The methodological approach is a qualitative one and relies on cross disciplinary readings of the literatures of crime and entrepreneurship which are developed into a conceptual model for understanding entrepreneurial behaviour in any context. The key behavioural areas which the work concentrates upon are those of modus essendi, modus operandi and modus vivendi.

That crime and entrepreneurship are interconnected areas of human endeavour which both transcend the legal and illegal economies.

The paper is limited by its tentative and theoretical nature and by the methodology of cross disciplinary reading. Future studies are planned to test the tripartite behavioural model on real cases.

Viewing entrepreneurship (like criminality) as being a learned method of operating has serious practical implications because it concentrates upon behaviours and actions in specific contexts.

Linking this understanding to the related elements of modus vivendi and modus essendi creates a useful model for understanding entrepreneurship in any context.

The purpose of this paper is to apply neutralization theory to white‐collar criminals to discuss criminal entrepreneurship.

The theoretical framework of neutralization techniques is applied to criminal entrepreneurship and white‐collar criminality.

A legal entrepreneur is a person who operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risk. Similarly, the criminal entrepreneur's task is to discover and exploit opportunities, defined most simply as situations in which there are a profit to be made in criminal activity.

Examples of criminal entrepreneurship committed by otherwise legal entrepreneurs are commonly labeled as white‐collar criminality. This paper discusses how criminal entrepreneurship by white‐collar criminals can be explained by neutralization theory, as white‐collar criminals tend to apply techniques of neutralization used by offenders to deny the criminality of their actions.

Policing white‐collar criminality should be expanded to understand criminal entrepreneurs when applying neutralization theory to deny crime activities.

Neutralization theory illustrates how serious white‐collar crime is denied by the offender.

As can be seen by this brief discussion of criminal entrepreneurship, white‐collar criminality and corporate and organized crime, there is a need for a concentrated research effort to clarify and explain these conflated conflicts. By discussing them in context this paper has made a contribution to the literature by introducing the concepts of entrepreneurial leadership and entrepreneurial judgment into the debate. Moreover, in discussing neutralization theory, some fresh insights can be gained into the mind of the criminal entrepreneur.

The literature of entrepreneurship has an urban focus and despite the emergence of the rural entrepreneurship literature, we know little about the characteristics, philosophies, operating practices and growth strategies of ordinary village entrepreneurs’ in a UK context. As a concept, the “village entrepreneur” is contentious as theoretically there should be little difference between urban and rural entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, there is! The concept is important because many villages are in decline and are marginal places in terms of entrepreneurial opportunity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A review of the fragmented literature is conducted to synthesise and develop greater understanding. Drawing on a “life-story” approach the empirical strand comprises of an analysis of five ethnographic interviews with village entrepreneurs.

The respondents did not consider themselves entrepreneurs whom they characterised as flash, rogues and even crooked. Their embedded village entrepreneur persona was constructed around tales-of-character, hard work and perseverance. They prided themselves in making “slow-money” which they retain over their lifetime. Embeddedness, self-efficacy, character and morality were key themes encountered.

From a research perspective the findings are based on a limited sample and the study was not specifically designed to capture data on characteristics, philosophies and operating practices. Further research on a larger scale is necessary to validate the findings.

From a practical perspective policy makers require to consider the notions of embeddedness, self-efficacy, character and morality when considering implementing growth strategies in rural areas.

This study contributes to the growing literature of rural entrepreneurship by expanding the typology of rural entrepreneurs and by detailing philosophies, operating practices, and growth strategies suitable and appropriate for small village and rural businesses.

Advance fee is a phrase — adopted over the years — which has been applied to a variety of offences, generally involving fraudulent activity in relation to financing of large‐scale projects, investments, or huge currency transactions and, however well disguised or described, involves the payment of monies in advance of any agreed course of action by the alleged financier or investor, ie the con‐man.

Underground banking docs not refer to cash dispensers in subterranean shopping centres. It refers to that secretive and mysterious global structure for facilitating the transfer of funds between countries, otherwise referred to as ‘Hawalla’ banking.

In small-business-communities trust is important inter/intra family particularly in relation to familial dynamics. Seldom is mistrust or distrust examined in an academic context. In business families “Black-Sheep” often rebel against familial expectations by engaging in criminal activity. This is important because entrepreneurs are eulogised by society and as an institution, family business is venerated. The very idea that small business owners would knowingly engage in crime is anathema. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using retrospective ethnography and immersion techniques this quasi-longitudinal study of (dis)organized crime in a small-business-community (SBC) starts the bridging process.

There is an assumption that business crime is best accommodated under the rubric of white-collar-criminality typically regarded as an excusable middle-class crime compared to organized working-class crime. By focusing on the black-sheep of business families collectively this work illustrates how there may be a stronger link between organized-crime-groups and the local-business-community than previously assumed because a small minority of businessmen engage in the commission of ordinary crime by choice.

The methodology used is a limitation as is replicating it in other small-business-communities.

This study provides an alternative heuristic through which to understand the application black-sheep-thesis in business settings. The knowledge developed has practical implications for the investigation of crime in such communities and for researchers in the field.

This study extends knowledge of white-collar-criminality within the business domain.

This is an original and novel study which extends our knowledge and understanding of trust based issues in business settings and the SBC.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the industrial exploitation of fishing quotas as a case of organized criminal entrepreneurship. Seldom is consideration given to the existence of informal and criminal entrepreneurship within the fishing industry. Consequentially, this case charts the “Black Fish Scandal” in the UK which saw the flouting of regulations and quotas on a commercial scale netting the protagonists £63 million through the illegal landing of undeclared fish.

The case study underpinning this paper is constructed using documentary research techniques.

Entrepreneurship can be destructive in a Baumolian sense as well as being productive. The moral of the story is that the entrepreneurs involved in the scandal are primarily small businessmen and not organized criminals; and that lessons can be learned from this case on how knowledge of entrepreneurship can be used to ensure that entrepreneurs and businessmen are not tempted to stray into the commission of economic crime.

A limitation of the study is that it was constructed solely from media reports of the scandal. The implications of this study are widespread for politicians, local government, policy makers and academic researchers alike and highlight the rise and fall of an industry and the impact of “laissez-faire” entrepreneurship on the industry suggesting to politicians, local government, policy makers that there needs to be a more planned approach to encouraging entrepreneurship within such coastal communities.

This case based empirical study is of value because it is one of the first known UK studies of the Black Fish Scandal.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study of white‐collar crime in business organisations, to create insights into perceptions of potential offenders.

A survey instrument was developed and submitted electronically to the chief financial officers of the 500 largest business organisations in Norway.

The study identified financial misconduct by chief executive officers in the company as the crime associated with the most serious consequence for the company. However, a person in a purchasing and procurement function is assumed to be the most likely involved in and vulnerable to white‐collar crime.

This is a survey approach that does not reflect actual crime.

Both control mechanisms and ethics are needed to prevent and detect white‐collar crime.

No executive should be left alone to handle business matters that can benefit himself/herself. Rather, the four eyes principle should always be applied.

The paper provides statistical evidence that top‐level executives are involved in financial crime.

Having developed a more nuanced understanding of how entrepreneurship pervades everyday policing systems, practices, and processes and how it imbues ‘Organised Crime’ and ‘Organised Criminals’ with a competitive advantage it is incumbent upon us to consider new methods of implementing entrepreneurial policing. A strength of longstanding systems of policing is that they work because they systematically perpetuate consistent and proven ways of working which achieve measurable results. Such systems operationalise the conventional and maintain the ‘status quo’. Conversely, innovations do not implement themselves and new ways of ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ require to be designed, trialled, and put in place. People innovate and initiate change and it is necessary when seeking to initiate changes such as ‘entrepreneurial policing’ to assess the entrepreneurial propensities and capacities of staff within an organisation because this is the starting place for both change and entrepreneurial action. As a consequence, various possibilities including utilising academic research methodologies as analytic tools are examined.