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Pyramid schemes create an unusual situation, where the victims might be effectively turned into offenders, as their role is to recruit more victims to the pyramid scheme. This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of pyramid schemes, their modern forms and why people join them.

This paper has developed from a structured literature review carried out as part of a wider study into policing pyramid schemes.

This paper identifies a range of reasons why people join pyramid schemes. Some of these reasons are “participant dominant”, including the vision of high reward for little work and the attraction to a better lifestyle. Other reasons are “organiser dominant”, including the exploitation of specific groups and high-pressure sales. These findings suggest significant differences in levels of culpability of pyramid schemes victims and perpetrators. This complexity is accompanied by conceptual, regulatory and institutional challenges.

Despite the profound and pervasive impact of pyramid schemes, researchers know very little about why some people participate in pyramid schemes. Limited research is largely American and specific to illegal multi-level marketing schemes. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to provide an overview of a mix of strategies of participants of pyramid schemes to recruit new victims and reasons why people are joining pyramid schemes.

This paper aims to empirically identify factors that increase consumer vulnerability to pyramid scheme fraud and compares/contrasts dynamics and implications of pyramid and Ponzi fraud.

Statistical techniques, including multiple regression, are used to analyze participant data (with over half a million individuals) from a now-defunct US-based pyramid scheme, Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing.

Findings suggest that this pyramid scheme flourished in counties with identifiable affinity groups: religious communities, Hispanic populations and certain age cohorts (e.g. recently retired). Recruitment success varied significantly between geographic regions, with the highest levels of recruitment in the South. While prior research finds a possible positive relationship between education and Ponzi participation, this is not the case in the pyramid scheme studied. Furthermore, while Ponzi schemes might be pro-cyclical, collapsing during contractions when participants seek to extract their money, this pyramid scheme exhibited counter-cyclical behavior.

State and federal regulators, as well as consumer protection advocates, should learn from analysis of past pyramid scheme cases. Such analysis informs allocation of scarce resources and supports the case for targeted, active education. Clarifying differences between Ponzi and pyramid fraud helps to support clear and effective intervention.

This is the first research to analyze national participant-level data from a pyramid scheme to inform future action. While it confirms some past findings, such as the connection to affinity fraud, it adds to collective knowledge on pyramid schemes and the differences between pyramid and Ponzi fraud.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between pyramid ownership structure and tax avoidance.

This paper is an empirical work using a sample of Canadian listed firms.

Relying on several proxies for tax avoidance, the authors find that firms affiliated with pyramidal structures generally engage in more tax avoidance activities than non-affiliated firms; firms affiliated with more complex pyramids engage in more tax avoidance practices and firms located at the lower tiers of the pyramids avoid more taxes; and some pyramid-affiliated firms with larger deviation between controlling shareholders’ cash flow rights and control rights engage in more tax avoidance practices.

A broader understanding of the relationship between pyramidal structure and tax avoidance can be pursued by including firms in other countries, where the pyramid groups (pyramid structure) are prevalent, but institutional environments differ from that of Canada.

This study highlights the importance of pyramid ownership in shaping tax avoidance activities among Canadian-listed firms. Canada provides an ideal setting for studying the impact of ownership structure, as it contains a diverse corporate ownership structure ranging from widely held freestanding firms to pyramidal business groups.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the management of the Great Pyramid of Giza project.

The paper uses evidence from the literature from many disciplines concerning both the objectives and construction of the pyramid. It relates this to recent discussion concerned with the issues faced in megaproject management, which are core to the discussion of success and failure.

The analysis shows the significance of the “break-fix model” of megaproject management and how having a sequence of megaprojects builds management through a learning process. It demonstrates the significance of innovation arising from the experience of previous projects in solving major technical challenges and illustrates the importance of the organisation and ethical management of a substantial workforce.

There is very limited reliable documentary evidence from the time of the construction of Giza (c.2560 BCE). Many sources concerning ancient Egypt are still widely contested. However, the use of research from a combination of disciplines demonstrates the relevance of the project and the importance of learning from history to contemporary project management.

The authors believe that this is the first paper to analyse the Giza pyramid project from a project management perspective. This was arguably the most significant construction project of ancient history and the paper explains the lessons, which can be learned, which are very significant to today’s megaprojects.

This paper aims to analyze the evolution of direct selling – a retail channel that successfully sold products ranging from cosmetics to radios to automobiles – to multilevel marketing (MLM), an industry now apparently heavily reliant on selling to itself. As the courts have found some MLM companies to be pyramid schemes, the analysis includes the overlap between the legal MLM model and an illegal pyramid scheme.

The development of direct selling in the USA was examined, followed by the factors contributing to the design and growth of the MLM model and its non-commission-based compensation structure. Then, the key legal decisions regarding illegal pyramid schemes operating under the guise of MLM, the relative stagnation of direct selling and the state of the MLM industry were examined.

As the MLM model operates on the dual premise of retailing through a network of distributors and recruiting new distributors to do the same, it was found that federal regulators and the courts consistently focus on the “retail question” – the existence and extent of sales to consumers external to the distributor network. The authors argue that without a significant external customer base, internal consumption by an ever-churning base of participants resembles neither employee purchases nor a buying club.

As the MLM model facilitated the growth of pyramid scheme fraud, creating victims rather than customers, this research highlights successful efforts to regulate this type of consumer fraud.

Few papers have been written on MLM and pyramids schemes, and none thus far has taken an historical perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) pyramid conceived by Archie B. Carroll. Anchored by theoretical and empirical evidence, this paper proposes a new model of analysis: the “CSR Spinner.”

To propose this new model, the authors are presenting a conceptual paper.

As a result of the analyses conducted in this paper, the authors propose the “CSR Spinner” model. This model which contemplates four dimensions (ethical, economic, legal and philanthropic) has in its structure a center bearing and three lobes that are derived from the center. In the center of the “CSR Spinner,” the ethical dimension is positioned and in the lobes are the other dimensions. In the “CSR Spinner,” the ethical dimension has the role of giving the model dynamism, defining both the direction and speed with which the lobes rotate, thus generating total CSR.

The “CSR Spinner” is original, as it consists of a new way of conceiving of the CSR pyramid.

As a knowledge instrument that allows the manipulation of reality, that is, to think, analyze, understand and predict this reality, the “CSR Spinner” model has the potential to provide advances in research on CSR. Because it proposes a theoretical refinement, this model still needs to go through a process of theoretical and empirical validation.

The “CSR Spinner” model has pragmatic connotations that can help corporate management adapt to various national and international contexts.

The “CSR Spinner” model represents an advance over the CSR pyramid, because of the model’s characteristics of dynamism, flexibility and adaptability across all types of organizations and within various national and international contexts.

Unlike firms listed in the USA, many large firms in Canada belong to business groups organized as pyramids. A pyramidal structure refers to a business group that consists of a set of enterprises or other entities and displays a top-down chain of control. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between pyramid ownership and earnings management.

The paper is an empirical study using a sample of 165 Canadian listed firms from 2010 to 2015. The impact of pyramid ownership on both accrual-based and real earnings management is examined.

The findings show that pyramid-affiliated firms engage in less accrual-based and real earnings management than non-pyramid-affiliated firms. The results further show that the divergence between control rights and cash flow rights of the controlling shareholders in the pyramid-affiliated firms is positively related to real earnings management. Moreover, the results highlight that intra-group transactions (other than internal financing) among pyramid-affiliated firms lead to higher level of both accrual-based and real earnings management, but internal financing is negatively associated with real earnings management. Overall, this study provides the evidence which indicates that pyramid ownership structure and earnings management are related to each other.

The paper contributes to the earnings management literature by studying the impact of pyramid ownership structure on earnings management, especially real earnings management.

This paper aims to identify psychological factors that influence people to be involved in Ponzi and pyramid schemes.

A psychological approach to finance or behavioural finance is applied in this research because of the assumption that human beings are not always rational. The sample consisted of 98 investors in 11 cities in Indonesia who were or had invested in an investment program with a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. The snowball sampling technique was applied.

The conclusion is that optimism (emotional bias), confirmation bias, representativeness bias, framing bias and overconfidence (cognitive bias) positively influenced investment decisions related to Ponzi and pyramid schemes.

The novelty aspect of this research is the implementation of a behavioural finance perspective to answer and express the fascinating phenomenon of Ponzi and pyramid investment schemes.

This paper aims to highlight how initial business models can be converted into a larger-scale solution for tapping into the emerging base-of-the-pyramid markets.

This study uses a qualitative, multi-case research design with 20 organizations tapping into the water market at the base-of-the-pyramid.

This paper explores three business models innovations: fostering value-in-context, allowing for modifiability and embracing organizational ambidexterity.

Due to our qualitative research approach, generalizability of our findings is limited.

The description of the three business model innovations offers guidance for executives to make their business models financially more sustainable in base-of-the-pyramid markets.

The water sector represents one especially interesting sector to examine business model innovations. For, among social goods, safe water remains a huge challenge to date where 700 million people remain without access to an improved water source.

Previous business model discussion in base-of-the-pyramid markets focuses on commercial goods. The authors focus on water as a social good. They demonstrate that the existing recommendations that business models in base-of-the-pyramid markets should be inclusive, complex, collaborative and scalable are mandatory, but not sufficient. In addition, business models should foster value-in-context, allow for modifiability and embrace organizational ambidexterity.

“I suggest that all companies employing more than a few hundred people should consider the possibility of purging the pyramid of all non‐executives: the strength of the pyramid lies in it giving a first‐rate command structure provided that it is compact and squat.”