Organizational Crime

Book excerpt: This book presents the results of an international comparative study on the causes of rule deviation in business and medical organizations. Based on document and interview analyses as well as experiments, the discrepancy between (state) regulations and organizational practice is elaborated and discussed in an interdisciplinary perspective. On the basis of the distinction between organizational and individual deviance, it could be shown across national boundaries that the unwritten rules of the organization make a decisive contribution in explaining organizational wrongdoing, as well as their containment. Implications for effective prevention derived from this are also pointed out.