Image construction versus empirical evaluations: automobile safety

The present study expands upon earlier work examining advertising as it relates to the construction of safety-related images in the automobile industry. Comparisons are made between automaker portrayal of vehicle safety in magazine advertising and their real-world safety-related performances. Such an analysis enables suggestions regarding, whether or not, the extent to which particular automakers demonstrate a misleading concern for safety and potentially produce false advertisements that violate the standards of law. In this sense, misleading claims related to automobile safety could be considered corporate deviance, particularly in relation to false advertising practices. This paper examines safety and vehicle marketing, a noted gap in recent literature, by looking at three magazine publications over the course of five?years and comparing the marketing strategies and assessing the extent to which automaker crash test evaluations correspond with their socially constructed, safety-based image. Our findings suggest that automakers are largely accurate in their advertising practices with regard to promoting and supporting safety claims.     

Sexual deviance among male college students: prior deviance as an explanation

Much research on sexual deviance on university and college campuses is limited by its narrow focus on group affiliation and leads to much speculation and conjecture. This article suggests that an alternative explanation is more suitable for explaining such an important and complex problem on college campuses. It argues that prior deviance serves as a more robust predictor variable of sexual deviance. Logistic regression analyses indicate a direct relationship between prior deviance and sexual deviance. The results lend support to the argument that group affiliation is not a suitable explanation for such a complex societal problem-sexual deviance. Limitations of the study and directions for future research on sexual deviance are discussed.     

Routine Activity Theory and Sexual Deviance Among Male College Students

Much research on sexual deviance on university and college campuses is limited by its narrow focus on group affiliation. In this study, it is argued that prior deviance and opportunity serve as more robust predictor variables of sexual deviance. Using a sample of 304 male college students from four universities within the Ohio Valley Conference, this paper utilizes Analytic moment structures (AMOS) analyses to examine the relationship between prior deviance and sexual deviance. Results support the assumption that sexual aggression is significantly (β=.17) mediated or accounted for by opportunity. Overall, the relationships among variables lend support to the argument that alternative explanations of sexual deviance may provide a better understanding of such a complex societal problem.

CONTROL BALANCE AND EXPLOITATIVE CORPORATE CRIME*

Control balance theory indicates that the control one exercises relative to the control one experiences, or the control balance ratio, should relate to specific forms of deviance. Control surpluses, or when control exercised is greater than control experienced, should relate to autonomous forms of deviance, whereas control deficits, or when control experienced is greater than control exercised, should relate to repressive forms of deviance. To date, control balance theory has been investigated empirically only to a limited extent, with mixed to supportive results. This paper presents an application of control balance theory to the autonomous deviant act of exploitation in a corporate crime context. Both control balance theory and the extant corporate crime literature offer impetus for such an investigation. Using data collected on working adults, the results support the key hypothesis that control surpluses rather than control deficits relate to exploitative acts in the corporate context. This finding holds with two control balance ratio measures, global and workplace‐specific. Future theoretical and empirical research directions are outlined.     

What do Alternative Measures of Peer Behavior Tell Us? Examining the Discriminant Validity of Multiple Methods of Measuring Peer Deviance and the Implications for Etiological Models

Deviant behavior tends to be more strongly correlated with respondents’ perceptions of peer deviance than with actual peer deviance. However, research has yet to discern between two interpretations of this finding. On one hand, respondent perceptions of peer deviance may simply be “biased” indicators of actual peer behavior or alternative measures of one’s own deviance. On the other, respondent perceptions and actual peer deviance may reflect fundamentally separate constructs. The present study uses two separate statistical methods to discern the empirical validity of each interpretation. It then illustrates the importance of the measurement results with a series of cross-lagged panel analyses assessing how a researcher’s operationalization of peer deviance impinges upon conclusions about the bidirectional relationship between personal and peer deviance. Measurement results across two separate behavioral domains (property crime and substance use) suggest that actual peer deviance items reflect a construct fundamentally separate from both personal and perceived peer deviance. Likewise, results fail to support the claim that peer deviance items are simply alternative measures of one’s own deviance. Cross-lagged structural equation results are consistent with the notion that personal deviance affects both later perceptions of peer deviance and actual peer deviance. Yet, null or very weak effects of either peer deviance measure on personal deviance are observed. In light of our findings, we discuss the necessity for new theorizing concerning the complex relations among personal behavior, perceived peer behavior, and actual peer behavior.     

Suite violence: Why managers muder and corporations kill

This paper examines the area of organizational deviance leading to avoidable death, injury and harm. Corporate activity creates a large number of victims and yet this area is neglected in the literature. Evidence indicates that business kills, maims and poisons; that we are dealing with organizational deviance; but that iy is difficult, legally and organizationally, to pin down precisely the motives and behhaviour of managers in suchh cases. Significant corporate violence is rooted in a multiplicity of situational factors, the embeddness of socio-economic activity and post-hoc rationalizations. The paper highlights one specific strand in business deviance; how structure and culture shape the managerial mind and influence behaviour in ways that foster deviance and cause harm. A range of social-psychological processes are examined that open opportunities, and rationalizations, for rule-breaking. Corporations can create and environment that leads to risk-taking, and even recklessness, resulting in high casualties and severe harm. Companies then get away with ``murder' because the law and the courts are not geared to organizational deviance and corporate violence. The organization causes the deviance and then forms the legal and institutional defence against facing up to the full consequences of the deaths, injuries and suffering among victims.     

试论"超越法律"的企业社会责任

The corporate social responsibility “beyond law” is the responsibility of enterprises beyond the mandatory obligations by force of law but in line with social values and expectations. Indeed, the legal norms on such kind of responsibility are “soft law”, which mainly incorporate social values and expectations in corporate business behaviors and governance structure, so as to realize corporate “self-regulation”. By protecting the substantive and procedural rights of stakeholders and improving their negotiation power, the “soft law” aims at realizing the spontaneous confrontation and balance of the market, and the corporate reputation mechanism and the functions of NGOs adds much to the performance of corporate social responsibility. He Zhaodan, Economics Doctor of Sun Yat-Sen University, mostly focuses on Law and Economics. She has published six research articles in the academic journals of China.     

Anomie and corporate deviance

This paper elaborates on Merton's theory of anomie, while aiming at the enhancement of our understanding of processes conducive to corporate deviance. It attempts to consolidate points made by theorists operating in diverse, often considered as conflicting, orientations or perspectives. A synthetic or integrated scheme is, thus, put forward, which can help appreciate the background against which corporate deviance is likely to occur. Moreover, it is argued that contemporary societies are inherently conducive to anomic trends. Such trends bring about not only lower-class deviance and crime — to which anomie theory has been traditionally applied — but also high-class and corporate deviance. Against claims by some scholars that the former is a matter of greater concern, it is suggested that the latter is at least as serious a problem and that it has significant implications for the social order.Parts of an earlier version of this paper were presented at the 10th International Congress for Criminology held in Hamburg, FRG, in September 1988.     

The effect of board size and composition on European bank performance

Banks are “special” financial institutions generating distinct corporate governance challenges. The present paper examines the relationship between two of the most pertinent corporate governance factors—that is, the size of the Board of Directors and the proportion of non-executive directors—and firm performance on a sample of 58 large European banks over the period 2002–2004. The empirical analysis embraces a number of bank-specific variables. Our results reveal that bank profitability is negatively related to the size of the Board of Directors, while the impact of Board composition, although positive in all models, is, in most cases, insignificant. The results are robust after controlling for firm-specific variables.      

Truman's revenge: Social control and corporate crime

Many criminologists have found that corporate crime does more harm than street crime, whether measured by property lost, money stolen, or lives taken. Yet, public concern about crime is almost exclusively focused on street crime and “just deserts” for the offender. The authors argue that corporate criminality is more likely than individual criminality to be planned and subjected to cost/benefit analysis than street crime and therefore more likely to be deterred by raising the costs of corporate criminality. The Model Penal Code is used to demonstrate that both individual and corporate crime produce a comparable array of avoidable harms. Public policies that demand just deserts for individual offenders (natural persons) are revealed as highly inconsistent with policies that protect corporations (juristic persons) from accountability for the harms they create. A philosophical and legal foundation for corporate crime control strategies is provided. The authors propose a sanctions regime for corporate criminals comparable to the sanctions regime imposed on natural persons for street crimes. Strategies to avoid risk shifting by corporations are suggested. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Newspaper Coverage of Corporate Price-Fixing

Among the reasons common corporate crimes such as price-fixing lack the "brimstone smell" of common street crimes such as burglary is that newspapers fail to provide frequent, prominent, or criminally oriented coverage of corporate crime. This certainly was true of newspaper coverage of the heavy electrical equipment antitrust cases of 1961. Replicative analysis reveals that this also was true of newspaper coverage of the folding-carton industry antitrust cases of 1976. Reasons for this continued lack of coverage are discussed, including the diffuse harm characteristic of price-fixing, the general lack of recognition that corporations are juristic persons capable of criminal deviance, and the disinclination of large organizations to link other large organizations with criminality.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of one-officer versus two-officer patrol units

This article presents a model-based evaluation of one-versus two-officer patrol staffing. Postulated arguments for and against each strategy are outlined as they appear in the literature. Performance measures are elicited from this discussion. Several models are constructed that allow for a comparative analysis using these performance measures; equal cost staffing options are considered. Formal expectations of comparative strategic performance are presented along with suggestions for further analytical research.     

Assessing law enforcement preparedness to address Internet fraud

Recent societal concern regarding computer crime was well documented in the research literature. To date, however, modest research addressed how large, local police and sheriff's departments confront Internet fraud. Using data collected from surveys distributed to the seven hundred largest police- and sheriff's departments, the present article addresses law enforcement: (1) preparedness to enforce Internet fraud crimes; (2) perceptions of Internet fraud; (3) cooperative policing efforts; and (4) Internet fraud information dissemination practices. Among other things, results suggested that individuals within these departments believed Internet fraud was problematic, although they lacked the resources to properly address the problem. These results are discussed as they relate to the organizational design of law enforcement agencies and their potential to adapt to innovative crimes. Suggestions are offered for a more effective approach to confronting Internet fraud.     

Gender,madness and crime: The reproduction of patriarchal and class relations in a psychiatric court clinic

This paper examines how forensic clinicians, particularly psychiatrists, help maintain the “constructed normality” of capitalist, patriarchal relations in contemporary liberal democratic states. The specific focus is a comparison of decision-making about accused women and men at a Canadian pre-trial clinic. Using quantitative and qualitative data, the authors argue that clinicians rarely express overt bias towards “clients”, but their assessments for the courts are shaped by intertwined assumptions about class and gender embodied in familial ideology which condemn most of the assessees to negative outcomes. Thus, forensic psychiatrists make moral judgements about accused persons which are transformed by technocratic, medico-legal discourse into “scientific” ones. In this way, clinicians individualize and depoliticize the deviance of their “clients” and provide the rationale for decisions made by other carceral agents to sanction offenders.     

Re-imagining crime prevention: controlling corporate crime?

While the discourses and practices of crime prevention are of increasing salience, few criminologists have sought the inclusion of corporate illegalities on such agendas. Relatedly, within criminology, there has been a diminished tendency to think in idealistic, utopian and emancipatory terms. This paper is one small attempt to think in precisely such terms.¹ But it is not an exercise in pure imagination. In particular, the paper makes extended reference to Finland, where recent experience suggests that corporate crime prevention may be feasible, under certain conditions, albeit subject to certain limitations. Thus we consider both the desirability and the feasibility of corporate crime prevention intruding upon the generally narrowly constructed terrain of ‘crime prevention’. We begin with a critique of some of the key aspects of crime prevention discourses – at both theoretical and practical levels – with a particular emphasis upon the extent to which these are both more appropriately and usefully applied to corporate crime prevention, before going on to discuss corporate crime prevention ‘in action’, through a focus upon recent developments in Finland. In a concluding section, we consider various aspects of both the desirability and feasibility of corporate crime prevention.     

Making the rules and breaking the rules: the political origins of corporate corruption in the new economy

Recent scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom have pointed to the systemic origins of many corporate frauds. This paper advances the argument that behind those scandals were strategic political actions that changed the regulatory and legal environment in which those firms operated and created criminogenic institutional frameworks that facilitated acts of corporate corruption. Three case studies involving (1) the California energy crisis of the late 1990's, (2) the regulation of energy derivatives, and (3) accounting treatments of stock options, are presented to illustrate how markets and the rules that govern them are the products of political processes and how they can create motivations and opportunities for corporate fraud. The implications these case studies have for the study of corporate crime and corruption are discussed.     

高管薪酬规范与法律的有限干预

The determination of corporate executive compensation is a kind of affiliated transactions including special conflicts of interest in the company. The regulation of executive compensation by law is extremely necessary but plays a limited role, and the scope and mode of such role are specific. The due process and information disclosure system in determining executive compensation prescribed in company law and securities law, the policy guidance of the tax legal regime, and the active and prudential judicial review are the three aspects of the regulation of executive compensation by law, the common goal of which is to ensure and enhance the correlation between executive compensation and corporate performance, i.e., the realization of the principle of “performance-based compensation.” Li Jianwei, Ph. D, is an associate professor of law at China University of Political Science and Law, and a visiting scholar at Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Australia. His major research is in corporate law, corporate governance and corporate management system, and his major works include: Corporate Law (RUC Press, 2008), Legal Regulation on Affiliated Transaction (Law Press, 2007), The Role of Law in Corporate Management (People’s Court Press, 2005), A Research on Independent Director System (RUC Press, 2004), A Research on the State-owned Exclusive Company (Law Press, 2002). Moreover, he has more than 30 articles released in core academic journals.     

我国上市公司社会责任与企业绩效的实证研究——来自上证180指数的经验证据

本文以上证180指数上市公司为样本,以企业对国家、员工、投资者和公益事业的社会责任贡献作为企业社会责任的评价指标,采用统计性描述和混合截面回归分析的实证研究方法来探究社会责任与企业绩效之间的关系.研究发现:我国上市公司对国家、投资者和公益事业的社会责任贡献与企业绩效正相关,而对员工的社会责任贡献与企业绩效则是负相关的关系.因此,要求企业更加重视对国家贡献的社会责任,完善社会保障机制和企业内部激励机制,推进股权分置和金融体制改革,并完善对企业履行公益事业贡献的激励机制.