More handpicked essays just for you.
Corporate culture of enron
Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem
An essay on how enron impacted society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Corporate culture of enron
Hegemonic masculinity coincides with the statement of ‘capitalism promotes crime’. In America, there is an emphasis on achieving the American Dream in regards to having a surplus amount of wealth and success. Enron instilled a very masculine corporate culture, which made deviance a viable adaption in the workplace (Tatham 2016c). The top executives at Enron such as Skilling and Fastow were self-interested actors who committed crime based on a cost-benefit analysis. Holding dominant positions within their business, they engaged in crime by using illegitimate means to achieve the American Dream, knowing that the rewards of crime were greater than rewards of non-crime. This adaptation to strain as Robert Merton coined is, ‘innovation’. By rejecting
“Money and sex motivate people, Andy. And money is the one thing that gets their hands off their dicks and into work” (Prebble, Act 1 Scene 5). And so with dicks and dollar bills flying all over the place, “Enron” by Lucy Prebble opens the curtain for us, the audience and participants of consumers, to look into the backstage of the notorious Enron collapse in 2001, revealing the discourse and bizarreness of the corporate culture. From the coexisting affair and competition between Skilling and Roe, to the hissing raptors eating up debt from the dark basement of Andy Fastow’s office, the darkest characters of Man are brought under examination and questioned with the unethical rise and the inevitable fall of Enron. With its plot rooted from a
White-collar crime is the financially motivated illegal acts that are committed by the middle and upper class through their legitimate business or government activities. This form of crime was first coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” (Linden, 2016). Crime has often been associated with the lower class due to economic reasons. However, Sutherland stressed that the Criminal Justice System needed to acknowledge illegal business activity as crime due to the repercussions they caused and the damage they can cause to society (Linden, 2016). Crime was prevalently thought to only be
Two of the major criminological theories of the twentieth century are Merton’s strain/anomie theory and Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization. Both theories were very important in their time, and still influence theorization today. This paper will discuss both theories and point out similarities and differences.
white-collar crime” (Shapiro, S. P.). It is no surprise to anyone that positions of trust regularly decentralize to corporations, occupations, and “white-collar” individuals. Nevertheless, the concept of “white-collar crime” involves a false relationship between role-specific norms and the characteristics of those who typically occupy these roles. Most of the time, it is the offender that is looked at more than the crime itself and assumptions about the individuals automatically come into play. It has be to acknowledged that “ class or organizational position are consequential and play a more complex role in creating opportunities for wrongdoing and in shaping and frustrating the social control process than traditional stereotypes have allowed” (Shapiro, S. P.). The opportunities to partake in white-collar crime and violate the trust in which ones position carries are more dependent upon the individuals place in society, not just the work place. The ways in which white-collar criminals establish and exploit trust are an important factor in truly exploring and defining the concept of white-collar crime.
White collar crimes do not garner as much media attention as that of violent crimes (Trahan, Marquart, & Mullings 2005). This is an odd fact because white collar crimes cost society much more than violent crimes do (Messner & Rosenfeld 2007). While there are many different definitions for white collar crime, Schoepfer and Piquero describe it as a nonphysical crime that is used to either obtain goods or to prevent goods from being taken (2006). People who commit these crimes are looking for personal or some sort of organizational gain and are being pressured to be economically successful from the idea of the American dream. The authors suggest that there are two types of people who commit crimes, those who have an immense desire for control and those who fear losing all they have worked hard for (Schopfer & Piquero 2006). Both groups have different reasons for turning to crime, but both groups commit the crime to benefit themselves. It was found that higher levels of high school drop outs were directly correlated to levels of embezzlement in white collar crime (2006). Because they are drop outs, they are less likely to be successful legitimately and turn to crime more often than their graduate
Within this essay there will be a clear understanding of the contrast and comparison between left and right realism, supported by accurate evidence that will support and differentiate the two wings of realism.
Drawing upon Merton’s strain theory and Sutherland and Cressey’s theory of differential association, I argue that the combination of these two theories offer a wholesome explanation of why crime happens. Robert Merton’s strain theory (1938) explains the role of social structure in generating anomie (a sense of lawlessness and alienation) in individuals. The theory claims that there are legitimate means of achievement in our quest for success or celebrated goals, which are imposed by social institutions, and the blocking of these pathways leads to the creation of strain. Merton claims that when in strain, people commonly react through conformity, although instances of innovation, ritualism, and retreatism also occur (pp.141). For example, if
Only an act that is defined by the validly passed laws of the nation state in which it occurred so that punishment should follow from the behaviour
The Industrial Revolution was a period of great change; all through out the world people were flocking in hundreds upon thousands out of the villages and into the city. In Britain the population shot up from “10 million in 1750 to 42 million in 1900” ("Crime and Punishment," par 1). Life in these cities was not only new, but also down right difficult to adjust to, people lived in overcrowded housing, disease was everywhere, and working conditions were unsafe. The people who moved into London, and other industrial cities, during the second Industrial Revolution were poor and desperate. As more and more people moved into the already packed and overcrowded cities did the crime rate rise? If it did rise, what was the stimulus that caused the rise in crime?
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.
Institutional anomie and the concept of the American Dream state that Americans continually want more. They want more material success, regardless of how much they already have. To attain their desired gains, white-collar offenders will do what ever it takes to achieve it even if it requires utilizing illegal means. Prior to committing such offenses for their own personal gain, they had to weigh the benefit and consequences of their actions. Taking into consideration their status and wealth, they were able to rationalize that they would be able to go undetected and therefore sought out to seek monetary success. Had the employees at Enron not been so intensely driven towards material wealth and had they not allowed the desire to drive them away from others and from conventional values, perhaps they could have been able to appropriately rationalize and realize that there are substantial consequences that will undoubtedly outweigh the perceived benefits. This alternative could have saved thousands of victims from one of the worst white-collar crime scandals in
White-collar crimes and organizational structure are related because white collar-crimes thrive in organizations that have weak structures. According to Price and Norris (2009), the elites who commit white collar-crimes usually exploit weaknesses in organizational structure and formulate rules and regulations that favor their crimes. Makansi (2010) examines case studies to prove that white-collar crime is dependent on organizational structure. For example, the financial crisis that Merchant Energy Business faced in 2001-2002 occurred due to the liberal Financial Accounting Board, which failed to provide a standard model of valuing natural gas and fuel. Moreover, a financial crisis that rocked the securitization market in 2008 was due to fraudulence in the pricing of securitization products. These examples ...
I think that utilitarianism theory makes the most sense to me over the other crime theories. The utilitarianism theory is based on that crime is rational and the punishment should fit the crime and is what the American jurisprudence system is based on. In a free society I feel that crime is a choice individuals make and not the result of biological for social circumstances. When I evaluated biological theory, it sounds like the general consensus is that an individual is born a criminal or a hereditary trait, but there is little evidence to support that all criminals are effected biologically. As for sociological theory in some places in the world, I can see this approach being effective. However, in the United States, we are a free country
The definition of crime can be defined by Tappan (1947 in [Walsh 2012: 2] as “an international act in violation of the criminal law committed without defense or excuse, and penalized by the state”, thereby insinuating that a violation of the criminal law results in a prescribed punishment. Crime is a legal concept that is applicable to a widely defined category of devious behaviour and is largely associated with socio-economic class. Conspicuously, a shift from crimes to socially harmful acts has developed, incorporating a moral risk through which it fosters a deviant behaviour, of which white collar crime is exemplified. White-collar crimes are organizational in terms of coordinated and operational devious behaviour that is often neglected
MacDonald, H. (2010, January 4). A crime theory demolished. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870359090504574638024055735590.ht