Traditionally corporate control is all about top-down approaches to management of employees.
Executives attempt to influence employees toward achieving business goals and they attempt to
prevent and detect wrongdoing misconduct and crime among employees. However top-down
approaches to corporate control do not work when executives and other privileged individuals in
the business themselves commit and conceal their wrongdoing misconduct and crime in
organizational settings. Then there is a need for a bottom-up approach in corporate control as
outlined in this book. Bottom-up control refers to the manner in which organizational members
can use different types of control mechanisms - such as whistleblowing transparency resource
access or culture - to monitor measure and evaluate executives' avoidance of deviant
behaviors and influence them toward achieving the organization's goals in efficient and
effective ways. The newly emerging perspective of a social license to operate forms part of the
bottom-up strategy where criminalization becomes social property independent of the criminal
justice system. The social license is predominantly centered on social permission for business
activity where the media social movements and citizen watchdogs exert pressure demand change
and bring top management to account. This book presents a novel approach to corporate control
of white-collar crime based on the theory of convenience. White-collar crime is financial crime
committed by privileged individuals who have legitimate access to resources based on the power
and trust inherent through their professional positions. Convenience theory proposes that
motive opportunity and willingness are the three dimensions that underlie white-collar crime
in an organizational context. This book contributes to the study of white-collar criminality
through a blend of theoretical discussions and practical materials that illuminate and support
the use of convenience theory. The book discusses how bottom-up approaches can overcome the
difficulty of detecting white-collar crime and overcome the barriers of preventing executive
deviance.
