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Organizational wrongdoing is still very much prevalent in today’s society. Traditional and social media are full of examples of organizations engaging in unethical or illegal behavior. While it is difficult – if not impossible – to establish whether the ever-increasing number of reported cases of wrongdoing is due to an actual increase in the phenomenon (objectivist view of wrongdoing) or to more attention being paid to it (social-constructivist view of wrongdoing), the fact remains that organizational wrongdoing seems to have become the norm rather than an exception in our everyday life. This is concerning, as organizational wrongdoing tends to undermine trust in fundamental institutions, such as the Market, the State, Religion, and Law, and may lead to them being replaced by other – sometimes less desirable – institutions or create an “institutional void.” Because of its potential impact on established institutions, organizational wrongdoing deserves to be closely monitored and further examined. This volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations is an attempt to draw attention to the theoretical and empirical relevance of the topic, consolidate and extend the knowledge accumulated in this area of research, and highlight potential direction for future research. The volume explores in particular the definitions and antecedents of organizational wrongdoing.

Organizational wrongdoing is still very much prevalent in today’s society. Traditional and social media are full of examples of organizations engaging in unethical or illegal behavior. While it is difficult – if not impossible – to establish whether the ever-increasing number of reported cases of wrongdoing is due to an actual increase in the phenomenon (objectivist view of wrongdoing) or to more attention being paid to it (social-constructivist view of wrongdoing), the fact remains that organizational wrongdoing seems to have become the norm rather than an exception in our everyday life. This is concerning, as organizational wrongdoing tends to undermine trust in fundamental institutions, such as the Market, the State, Religion, and Law, and may lead to them being replaced by other – sometimes less desirable – institutions or create an “institutional void.” Because of its potential impact on established institutions, organizational wrongdoing deserves to be closely monitored and further examined. This volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations is an attempt to draw attention to the theoretical and empirical relevance of the topic, consolidate and extend the knowledge accumulated in this area of research, and highlight potential direction for future research. The volume focuses in particular on the variegated consequences and impact of organizational wrongdoing.

When reporting wrongdoing internally, whistleblowers are confronted with the dilemma of weighing up their loyalty toward the organization (e.g., ethical standards) and their co-workers (e.g., the social norm of not snitching on peers). However, the role played by peers in the whistleblowing decision process and in the aftermath has rarely been addressed in existing reviews. We therefore perform a systematic review that identifies seven thematic clusters of peer factors, offering researchers an informative overview of (a) the peer factors that have been examined to influence the whistleblowing decision, and (b) the extent to which the whistleblower experiences adverse consequences from peers in the aftermath of whistleblowing. As peer factors seem to be important to explain and predict internal whistleblowing, researchers are encouraged to address in future works the research gaps our review unraveled.

Organizational wrongdoing researchers often look to past cases to empirically develop and support theoretical understanding. Their research is therefore conducted at a temporal distance to focal events and frequently relies on retrospective accounts and surviving documentary evidence. These methodological circumstances define historical research practice, and we demonstrate in this paper the valuable insights that historical approaches can provide organizational wrongdoing research. Specifically, we draw on a range of practices from history and the social sciences to introduce four historically informed approaches: narrative history, analytically structured history, historical process study, short-term process study. We differentiate these based on their particular affordances and treatment of two key methodological considerations: historical evidence and temporality. We demonstrate the specific value these approaches represent to organizational wrongdoing research with several exemplars showing how they have been used in related fields of research.

In this paper, we investigate the process by which social control agents define wrongdoing over time and the principles they employ in drawing the boundary between right and wrong. We empirically examine how Italian state actors sought over four decades to categorize behaviors in the so-called “gray area,” i.e., the conduct of individuals supportive of the mafia organization Cosa Nostra and its criminal aims, but not members of the organization. Based on an archival analysis of texts produced since the 1960s, we reconstruct how state actors started from a preliminary definition of wrongdoing, moved to stigmatize the behaviors in question on moral grounds, and ultimately criminalized them with legal sanctions. We conceptualize the main principles behind this evolving categorization as intentionality of conduct, freedom of choice, and scope of harm. The paper contributes to the debate on the factors and conditions shaping the definition of wrongdoing over time and the contribution that social control agents provide to this aim.

The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal was one of the largest examples of organizational wrongdoing in corporate history, costing the firm immense damage to its reputation and over $33 billion in fines, penalties, financial settlements, and buyback costs. In this paper, we draw on the concept of boundary work to provide insight into the causes of wrongdoing at VW. Supplementing other work on the scandal, we show how the ways in which boundaries became established in the organization resulted in an internal context that defined “in” and “out” groups, normalized certain behaviors, and limited communication across intraorganizational boundaries. This allowed wrongdoing to not only become established but also to go unchallenged. We provide contributions to broader understandings of organizational wrongdoing and to the temporal unfolding of boundary work by theorizing how a combination of cognitive, horizontal, and vertical boundaries can create an infrastructure of organizational design that permits organizational wrongdoing, prevents it being challenged, and ultimately normalizes it in everyday activities.

The purpose of this study is to examine the key predictors of whistleblowing intention of accountants within the organization. By relying on the benefit-to-cost differential theory, this study examines the influence of professional skepticism, cognitive styles and perceived organizational support on whistleblowing intentions while controlling for the effect of some demographic variables on the estimated results. Further, the authors ascertain whether the threat of retaliation moderates the relationship between professional skepticism and whistleblowing intentions.

Data was obtained from professional accountants licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana by means of self-administered questionnaires. The partial least square-structural equation modeling technique was used to test for the hypothesized relationships in this study.

The results of this study suggest the intention to report wrongdoing within the organization is influenced by individuals’ level of professional skepticism, cognitive style and the perception that they will have the backing of their organization in reporting wrongdoing. Moreover, the authors also find females and individuals who have advanced in age to have greater motivation to report wrongdoing in the organization.

This study contributes to whistleblowing literature by highlighting the effect of professional skepticism on whistleblowing intentions. Also, this study provides empirical support for the applicability of the benefit-to-cost differential theory to the whistleblowing literature.

Whistleblowing is one of the most imperative instruments to unveil wrongdoing. The purpose of this study is to explore the whys and wherefores of undertaking the act of whistleblowing by Indian nurses. This study also delves into the reasons that would stimulate the nurses' whistleblowing intentions and, on the contrary, the reasons that would keep them silent on encountering any wrongdoing.

This study incorporates interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative method aiming to provide a detailed examination of the personal lived experiences of the nurses. This technique helps to understand the individual perspective of nurses. It, thus, allows the researchers to generate common themes from the data giving insightful and in-depth knowledge about the same.

The findings of this study suggest that nurses felt a sense of morality and responsibility toward the hospital, which motivated them to raise their voices to the concerned authorities within their organizations before reaching out to external agencies. The other motivators include peer and management support regarding the surety that appropriate action would be taken if reporting is done against the wrongdoer. On the other side, job loss or fear of harassment from peers and supervisors demotivates and discourages them from involving in the act of whistleblowing, especially in cases where they had dependents.

This study implies that hospitals/health-care units should provide an affirmative organizational culture to the nurses through sensitivity training that spreads awareness and a sense of responsibility. Also, setting favourable examples would help nurses gain motivation from the organization's past experiences. Having independent agencies to investigate whistleblowing complaints can be more encouraging than in-house management. Additionally, assurances by the government to protect the interest of the nurses who blow the whistle through anonymous whistleblowing and stringent rules for the job security of whistleblowers need to be aligned.

This study highlights the whistleblowing intention of Indian employees of the health-care sector, that is, nurses, which is the pioneer research work in the Indian context. In India, the profession of nurses is subjugated by females; hence, this study would contribute to the literature by looking at whistleblowing through gender predisposition. As the work of nurses is wholly based on patient advocacy, the ethical dilemma of raising their voices or remaining silent is very natural. This study brings about specific concerns related to the whistleblowing of women nurses and talks about the solutions that can be undertaken to encourage them to engage in the act of whistleblowing.

How can we explain the unresponsiveness of Internal Audit (IA) amid signs that fraud is arising and spreading within an organization? Internal auditors are entrusted with the formal responsibility of sounding the alarm about the risk of fraud and organizational wrongdoing. However, internal auditors failed to respond as the cross-sell fraud at Wells Fargo’s Community Bank (CB) Division unfolded over more than a decade, growing into a massive, full-fledged scandal. We examine IA as a profession and explore how the interpretation of three classic tenets of auditing (scope, compliance and materiality) may enable organizational wrongdoing to fester unattended until it erupts into yet another scandal. We conclude with implications for the socialization and practice of internal auditors, emphasizing the need for reflexivity and moral judgment in the interpretation and application of tenets so deeply ingrained in the IA profession.

Scandals regularly sweep through organizational fields: they wreak havoc in markets, vaporize billions of dollars in firm value, bring down giant corporations, get CEOs fired, alter the evolution of technologies, and trigger major changes in society. In spite of their significance for organizational life, scandals have received remarkably limited attention in management research. I build on the social sciences’ sparse but growing stream of research on scandals to explore the concept beyond its usual representation as a discrete event. I propose that an organizational scandal may be understood as an interactional process associated with the disclosure of alleged organizational misconduct that involves: a public struggle between alleged perpetrators and social control agents over the framing of organizational misconduct; moralizing by audience members; collective effervescence at the societal level; and the potential rewriting of the moral rules applicable to organizations and their members.