Does the organization produce the criminal? Another look at white-collar crime

White-collar crime is often presented as the result of personal choice: an individual exploits his or her position, authority, or access to resources to obtain an illegal benefit. However, this view may ignore a significant factor, the organizational environment in which the decision to commit the crime is made. The central argument of this article is that the organization is not just the place where the crime occurs: through its organizational culture, incentive system, norms, and response to misconduct, it may create conditions that encourage the development of white-collar crime.

The term “white-collar crime,” coined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland, refers to crimes committed in the professional or business activities of people of social and occupational status. These crimes may include fraud, embezzlement, bribery, accounting manipulation, and abuse of authority. A key characteristic of them is that they occur within complex organizational systems, where it is often difficult to distinguish between a legitimate business decision and a criminal act.

This is where the importance of organizational culture comes from. According to renowned researcher Edgar Schein, organizational culture is made up of values, norms, and basic assumptions that influence the behavior of organizational members. When an organization conveys that success is measured primarily by sales gains or meeting goals, without sufficient reference to how the results were achieved, it may create an incentive for problematic behavior. In other words, when an organization rewards the result and ignores the process, it may make deviating from the rules a practical and even worthwhile possibility.

For example, a sales manager who is given an unrealistic goal may begin to change data, hide deal cancellations, or present a misleading picture of the department’s performance. If the manager continues to meet goals and receives praise and promotions while the misconduct is not addressed, a clear message is created to employees: results are more important than rules. Thus, the organizational environment not only enables the behavior, but may contribute to its normalization.

Another example is an organization where a manager favors certain suppliers in exchange for benefits. If employees are aware of this but do not report it, either out of fear or because they feel that “this is how things are,” the behavior may become part of the unwritten norm. A new employee entering the organization may learn these norms by observing his or her colleagues and managers, even if he or she initially opposed the behavior.

This process is called the normalization of deviance. A small violation that goes unaddressed can gradually become a more significant violation. The moral and organizational boundary blurs, and employees stop seeing deviant behavior as unusual. Therefore, in some cases, delinquency is not the result of a “bad person” acting alone, but of a process in which the organization allows inappropriate behavior to become established and routine.

Organizational silence also reinforces this process. An employee who notices suspicious behavior may fear harm to his status, promotion, or job security. When employees understand that the cost of reporting may be higher than the cost of silence, a system is created in which the offense can continue over time. In such a case, the problem is not only the behavior of the perpetrator but also the organizational mechanisms that were unable, or unwilling, to stop it.

However, this does not mean that the organization absolves the individual from responsibility. The environment can create pressure, opportunity, and legitimacy, but it is the individual who makes the decision to commit the offense. Two employees can be exposed to the same organizational culture and respond to it differently. Therefore, white-collar crime should be seen as a possible outcome of the encounter between personal choice and organizational conditions.

This also gives rise to the practical significance of the central argument: if the organization may contribute to creating the conditions for crime, then preventing it cannot be reduced to punishing the offender after the crime has been discovered. The conditions that made it possible in the first place must also be addressed: setting realistic goals, creating review mechanisms, protecting employees who report irregularities, strengthening transparency, and ensuring that managers are rewarded not only for results but also for the manner in which they achieved them.

Ultimately, the important question is not just “Who committed the crime?” but also “What kind of organization allowed the crime to develop?” An organization does not necessarily produce criminals, but it can shape the environment in which a person makes decisions. Therefore, understanding white-collar crime requires examining not only the person who broke the law, but also the culture, incentives, norms, and silences that surrounded him. The fight against white-collar crime therefore begins not only in the interrogation room, but much earlier, in the conference room where it is determined what is considered success, and what is allowed to be done to achieve it.