Collaborative Research on Global Corporate Structures and Attributions of Responsibility and Wrongdoing

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Many of the most serious misdeeds in modern societies are committed not by individuals acting for personal gain, but by members of organizations obeying orders from authority. These acts are sometimes called "crimes of obedience" and globally seem to be a consequence of the growth of bureaucracy. While we surmise that within organizations there are differing and even changing conceptions of responsibility, corporate crime, and what should be done in the face of such wrongdoing, there is little known about these attitudes and the conditions that lead to accountability. The study being undertaken by Hamilton and Sanders directly examines such issues. The research explores how responsibility and sanctions for wrongdoing in organizations are affected by the global dispersal of corporate forms. Three different cultures, U.S., Japanese, and Soviet, representing contrasting legal and economic environments (marked capitalism, corporate capitalism, and socialism) are the sites for assessing the impact of different organizational forms on individual behavior. Based on a survey design that systematically varies vignettes according to key characteristics of organizational structure, the study examines perceptions of individual and corporate responsibility as separate matters, yet within the context of three contrasting economic systems. This design allows for the isolation of political, economic, and cultural influences and the effects of global changes in organizations on attributions of responsibility, perceptions of wrongdoing, and attitudes toward social control. The research has considerable potential to yield important knowledge not only about attribution theories but also about organizational compliance, regulation, and social control in a transnational context.