Corporate Wrongdoing and the Art of the Accusation

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

‘Robert Faulkner adds a new, fascinating, and persuasive dimension to our understanding of corporate law-breaking, by demonstrating that it is accusations rather than official actions against capitalist enterprises that hit the hardest. Accusations claim the infliction of grievous harm, assume guilt, and employ defamatory language and derogatory portraits of alleged perpetrators that are far severer than those which appear when the enforcement and adjudicatory agencies take over. This is a book that will enlighten readers seeking to comprehend the dynamics of the recent economic meltdown and earlier episodes of malfeasance in the corporate world.’ —Professor Gilbert Geis, University of California, Irvine