Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2758
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Item TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM GENDER DIVERSITY AND ITS EFFECT ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL OFFENDING(2022) Layana, Maria Cristina; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study addresses a gap in the current corporate crime literature by giving special attention to the characteristics and role of the top management team (TMT) in facilitating or mitigating illegal conduct. I ask how changes in certain demographic characteristics of the TMT unit, particularly gender composition, affect various forms of corporate offending over time. Specifically, 1) In what ways are changes in TMT gender characteristics related to corporate illegality over time? 2) What is the nature of the relationship between TMT gender diversity, corporate offending, and other key characteristics of women executives? 3) What is the temporal order of these relationships? 4) How do other TMT and corporate characteristics influence the relationships between TMT gender diversity and firm offending? Stemming from the strategic leadership literature, Hambrick and Mason’s (1984) Upper Echelons (UE) perspective serves as the primary theoretical framework guiding this study. This dissertation focuses on two types of corporate illegality: environmental and financial (i.e., accounting fraud, bribery, and anticompetitive acts) using a universe of firms listed on the S&P 1500 from 1996 through 2013.Item TESTING THE INFLUENCE OF VARIOUS "LICENSES" IN MOTIVATING CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOR(2013) Rorie, Melissa; Simpson, Sally S.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I test a framework of corporate environmental compliance put forth by Gunningham, Kagan, and Thornton in their 2003 book called Shades of Green. However, this dissertation moves beyond a mere test of theory by integrating the corporate-level license framework with the individual-level Rational Choice Theory. In doing so, this integration portrays how individuals within corporations decide to comply or overcomply with environmental regulations while accounting for the organizational context. Specifically, external pressures from the legal, social, and economic domains as well as corporation-wide policies and culture impact individual-level cost-benefit analyses. In turn, these cost-benefit calculations impact the decisions made by corporate managers. I propose five hypotheses based on this integration and test them using an environmental vignette survey of individuals as well as meta-analytical data. The vignette survey provides a randomly-generated hypothetical scenario and asks respondents (here, environmentally-minded business people) to predict their likelihood of offending or overcomplying as the depicted manager in the scenario did. Results provide mixed support for the impact of the external license pressures and more support for the rational choice theory measures. I also compare similarities and differences between the offending and overcompliance models. I conducted a test of the robustness of hypothesis 1 results using meta-analysis of studies collected through 2006. These studies use actual firm-level behaviors as their outcomes and therefore overcame some of the limitations of the vignette study. I found additional support for the relationship between external pressures and offending, although more analysis is needed to assess how effects differ by study methodologies and samples. Overall, this integrated theory is worthy of further empirical testing and has important implications for both theories of corporate crime as well as prevention and control policies. Future research should examine the interactions between factors affecting the corporation, those affecting the individuals in charge of the corporation, and interactions between these factors and levels. The theory proffered here provides a clear, comprehensive, yet fairly parsimonious foundation for doing so.Item The Deterrent Effects of Ethics Codes for Corporate Crime: A Meta-Analysis(2009) Schell-Busey, Natalie Marie; Simpson, Sally S.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The current financial crisis, brought on in part by the risky and unethical behaviors of investment banks, has drawn attention to corporate crime, particularly on the issue of how to prevent it. Over the last thirty years, codes of conduct have been a cornerstone of corporate crime prevention policies, and consequently are now widespread, especially among large companies. However, the empirical literature is mixed on the effectiveness of codes, leaving them open to critics who charge that codes can be costly to implement, ineffective, and even criminogenic. In this dissertation I use meta-analysis to examine the evidence regarding the preventative effects of ethics codes for corporate crime. The results show that codes and elements of their support system, like enforcement and top management support, have a positive, significant effect on ethical-decision making and behavior. Based on these results, I propose an integrated approach toward self-regulation founded on Braithwaite's (2002) enforcement pyramid, which specifies that regulation should primarily be built around persuasion with sanctions reserved for situations where a stronger deterrent is needed.Item Exploring the Relationship Between Profit-Squeeze and Occupational Safety and Health Violations(2005-05-05) Schell, Natalie Marie; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One challenge for corporate crime scholars has been to distinguish criminal firms from non-criminal firms. A common explanation for this distinction is that offending companies are more economically troubled than firms that offend less or not at all. This study examines the relationship between firm characteristics and crime by focusing on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations. Specifically, this research applies a profit-squeeze explanation to account for OSHA violations using a cross-sectional analysis of 77 companies for the time period 1993-2000. Results indicate mixed support for the profit-squeeze argument at the firm level using a variety of financial performance measures. Analyses also reveal that union membership was related to OSHA violations.