HOW STRUCTURAL DECOUPLING FACILITATES ORGANIZATIONAL MISCONDUCT.

Abstract

Organizational misconduct may be the best-documented corporate phenomena of the past two years. The accounting practices of companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco have transcended the finance journals and infiltrated dinnertime conversation across the country. Given the apparent ubiquity of organizational misconduct and the enormous power of large organizations to affect individual lives for better and worse, it is critical that researchers develop theoretical models that accurately explain, predict and ultimately help control organizational misconduct. The purpose of this study is to further our understanding of organizational misconduct through qualitative analysis of widespread and entrenched deceptive sales practices at a large life insurance company. Building upon an emerging theoretical viewpoint that organizational misconduct research should incorporate a symbolic perspective, my findings illuminate how organizational compliance structures that are decoupled from other core business functions generate frames that de-legitimize rules and legitimize rule-breaking. Decoupling the compliance function from core business activities creates a

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