Gender and white-collar crime: examining representations of women in media?

Abstract

Using documentary research methodology, we collected empirical data from three national Norwegian newspapers to examine the issue of gender and white-collar crime to examine representations of women in the media. Only 8 out of the 179 white-collar criminals presented in Norwegian newspapers in the years from 2009 to 2011 were women. This low ratio mirrors the representation of women entrepreneurs per se in the media in general. Issues surrounding white-collar crime are generally discussed in the literature of criminology using criminological theories, not entrepreneurship theories. As a result, little consideration has been given to the business issues surrounding white-collar criminality. We therefore synthesize material from the literatures of criminology and entrepreneurship to help answer the research question.

Keywords::

• gender
• white-collar crime
• media
• entrepreneurs
• Norway

Notes

^1. Holm and Ljunggren (2007) articulate that Norway scores high on the 2006 general entrepreneurship monitor index, albeit there is a considerable gap between men and women in that 21% of Norwegian men are business owners; while the number for women is 9% providing few role models and a low culture for women entrepreneurs. There are few networks and associations for female entrepreneurs and no nationwide association for women.

^2. However, as documented by Dalton and Ortegren (2011), women's responses to ethical issues might be attributed to the social desirability response bias which relates to the tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner viewed favourably by others leading to over-reporting good behaviour or under-reporting bad or undesirable behaviour. This bias appears to drive a significant portion of the relationship between gender and ethical decision-making, where females consistently report more ethical responses than males.

^3. Negotiation is a fundamental form of coordination in organizations that affect the process of work, the resolution of conflict and the advancement of careers. Persistence here is the willingness to continue seeking compromise from a ‘naysaying’ counterpart.

^4. It would be difficult to research white-collar criminality without resorting to using examples of famous cases to illustrate points, and because these famous cases are so well known to the public, it would be difficult to write about the cases without identifying them. This necessitates the use of documentary research methods which, although accepted in the history, are considered suspect and unethical in other social science disciplines.

^5. It must be remembered that by the time many entrepreneurs reach the pinnacle of their entrepreneurial careers, they are in their mid 40s to 50s and have been running their businesses for several years, although the crimes for which they are sentenced may have been ongoing for some considerable time.

^6. This list was arrived at by a careful review of the literature and represents established wisdom in the field of criminology. The statements do not represent our views.

^7. Examples of neutralization techniques are (a) denial of responsibility, (b) denial of injury, (c) denial of the victim, (d) condemnation of the condemners, (e) appeal to higher loyalties, (f) everyone else is doing it and (g) a claim to entitlement. The offender may claim an entitlement to act as he did either because he was subject to a moral obligation or because of some misdeed perpetrated by the victim. These excuses are applied both for occupational crime and for corporate crime at all levels (Thoroughgood et al.2011).

^8. Statistically, men are more likely to be recorded as the owner of a business than women. Statistically (and culturally), a son is more likely to be named as the successor (or partner) in a family business than a daughter. Moreover, businessmen often register the business (or assets) in their wives' names to avoid legal consequences or for tax avoidance purposes. We assume that this may be a two-way process and that women may run a business but register it in their husbands' names. This is a legal cut out mechanism as a spouse cannot normally be legally compelled to give evidence against the other. Often, the registered owners of businesses are actually fronts for the real owners again as a legal cut out mechanism. This too may disguise the true number of female-owned business and the cases where women act as the care-taker manager of a business in the absence of their male partners. In addition to this, women are often treated as confidants and know more than they care to let on. Finally, women think more about the consequences of their actions and are generally less impulsive than men and care more about what people think of them.

^9. Although our research and analysis has confirmed that women are under-represented in the crime figures for white-collar crime and are therefore likely to be misrepresented too, we have to be careful in relation to what we can claim on the basis of our analysis because we cannot claim to have uncovered what women think.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Petter Gottschalk

Petter Gottschalk is a Professor of Information Systems and Knowledge Management in the Department of Leadership and Organization at the Norwegian School of Management. His research is concerned with knowledge management systems in law enforcement and criminal entrepreneurship. He has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of ABB Datacables and the Norwegian Computing Centre.

Robert Smith

Robert Smith is a Reader in Entrepreneurship at Aberdeen Business School, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. He is also the SIPR Lecturer in police Leadership and Management. His research interests are eclectic but include criminology, criminal entrepreneurship, policing studies, rural entrepreneurship and small and family business.