Description
An exploration of accusations of wrongdoing and the revelations these expose about the dark side of
capitalism and modern corporations.
This book addresses an old and basic question: what is the moral order of the market? Corporate Wrongdoing and
the Art of the Accusation is an exploration of accusations of wrongdoing, and the revelations these accusations
expose about the dark side of capitalism and modern corporations, and their relationships with suppliers, buyers, peers,
investment banks and state regulators. The study explores data gathered from the past twenty years, including over a
thousand accusations of economic wrongdoing in corporate America. The research traces exchange paths or structural
routes; cultural recipes or ideas about wrongdoing; and interactions between the culture and structure of transgression
in economic in markets.
Repertoires of accusation, and the three-way associations between accused, accuser and accusation, reveal the moral
order of the market. The tools provided in this data collection and analysis provide a template for the study of the threeway
relationship between the following: cultural items or types (i.e., accusation types), structural locations or paths (i.e.,
market interfaces) and time (i.e., temporal locations of types and paths, or recipes and routes). Repertoires unlock the
moral order of the modern market and other institutions (family, politics, education, religion, science) as revealed in
accusations of transgression.
Contents
Acknowledgements; Chapter 1. Accusations: Between the Innuendo and the Illegal; Chapter 2. Red Flags and Rebukes:
How to Assemble an Accusation; Chapter 3. Fighting Words and Key Phrases; Chapter 4. Market Exchanges Gone Sour:
Six Fields of Action; Chapter 5. Finger Pointing and Three Themes: Lying, Cheating, and Stealing; Chapter 6. The
Ecology of Greed: Hot Spots for Accusations; Chapter 7. The Repertoires of Wrongdoing; Appendix A: Notes on
Statistical Analysis and Coding Principle Themes, Keywords, Key Phrases in the Accusations; Appendix B: The Sample
of United States Corporations and Counts of Public Announcements of Alleged Economic Crime; References; Index