Basic human values and white-collar crime: Findings from Europe
| Author | Daniel Larsson,Ingemar Johansson Sevä,Mikael Goossen |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370816633260 |
| Published date | 01 July 2016 |
| Date | 01 July 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Criminology
2016, Vol. 13(4) 434 –452
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370816633260
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Basic human values and
white-collar crime: Findings
from Europe
Mikael Goossen, Ingemar Johansson Sevä
and Daniel Larsson
Umeå University, Sweden
Abstract
The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between values and white-collar crime.
The analyses draw on pooled survey data covering 14 European countries. The value constructs
are derived on the basis of the theory of basic human values and seven value constructs are
tested in relation to three types of white-collar crime: tax evasion, insurance fraud and bribery.
The results show that a majority of the value constructs are statistically significantly related
to white-collar crime in the expected direction. The relationships between values and white-
collar crime are particularly clear-cut regarding tax evasion and insurance fraud but more mixed
regarding bribery. The value constructs ‘universalism/benevolence’, ‘power/achievement’ and
‘stimulation’ yield consistent results across all three crime types. ‘Universalism/benevolence’
levels are negatively associated, while ‘power/achievement’ and ‘stimulation’ levels are positively
associated, with odds of having committed white-collar crime. The results suggest that values are
relevant predictors when trying to account for variation in white-collar offending.
Keywords
Basic human values, bribery, Europe, insurance fraud, tax evasion, white-collar crime
Introduction
Ever since recognizing the concept of crime as encompassing more than ‘merely’
poverty-related anti-social acts, much thanks to Sutherland’s (1940, 1949) work, society
has come to see the danger posed by white-collar criminality. Incitements to gain knowl-
edge in this field of research are not lacking. The Committee of Ministers of the Council
of Europe claims that economic crime ‘causes losses to public revenue, has an adverse
impact on society . . . and works to diminish trust and confidence in the economic
Corresponding author:
Ingemar Johansson Sevä, Department of Sociology, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden.
Email: ingemar.johansson.seva@soc.umu.se
633260EUC0010.1177/1477370816633260European Journal of CriminologyGoossen et al.
research-article2016
Article
Goossen et al. 435
system’ (Council of European Commission, 2006: 52). At the organizational level, over
42 percent of large companies in Europe have been damaged by economic crime
(Schlegel, 2003). Apart from major financial losses, white-collar crime is also related to
social and physical costs, including work-related injuries and deaths (Friedrichs, 2007)
as well as more direct forms of victimization such as sales fraud and unsafe products (see
Croall, 2009).
The white-collar crime literature highlights the fact that criminal acts are not only
conducted by marginalized groups, but are also undertaken by respectable and well-
integrated citizens operating from offices and board-rooms. Traditional criminological
theories are often used to explain white-collar crime but empirically they tend to come
up shorthanded (see, for example, Benson and Simspon, 2015; Croall, 2001; Piquero and
Schoepfer, 2010; Simpson, 2013). Previous research has indeed found that white-collar
criminals deviate from street criminals, for example regarding their age, educational
attainment and social class (Alalehto and Larsson, 2012; Wheeler et al., 1988; Weisburd
et al., 1991). It has, furthermore, been found that white-collar criminals differ from street
criminals as well as non-criminals regarding psychological and personality factors (see
Ragatz and Fremouw, 2010). It is less known, however, whether white-collar criminals
deviate regarding their motivational principles and the abstract goals guiding their
behavior, that is, their basic values. Several studies have shown that there is a relation-
ship between values and behavior (see, for example, Bardi and Schwartz, 2003; Hitlin
and Piliavin, 2004; Schwartz and Bardi, 2001), but this relationship has not been system-
atically examined when it comes to white-collar crime. The scattered studies available on
the relationship between values and white-collar offending indeed provide some support
for this claim, but these studies are few in number and often limited to a small number of
individual value types as well as small samples.
The aim of this study is to systematically examine the relationships between a broad
range of values and white-collar crime. The value types examined are based on the the-
ory of basic human values (Schwartz 1992, 1994) and should be understood as a funda-
mental set of values shared by all people, functioning as underlying motivational and
guiding principles. Their relationships with three types of white-collar crime – tax eva-
sion, insurance fraud and bribery – are investigated using pooled nationally representa-
tive survey data covering 14 European countries.
White-collar crime
There are two broad definitions of white-collar crime: offender-based and offence-based.
The offender-based definition has its origin in the work of Sutherland (1940, 1949), who
defines white-collar crime based on the social and occupational status of the offender as
‘a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of
his occupation’ (1949: 9). The other, offense-based tradition stems from a critique against
using offender characteristics as part of the definition. For instance, Shapiro (1990: 347)
argues that this ‘confuse[s] acts with actors, norms with breakers, the modus operandi
with the operator’. The offense-based tradition is instead concerned with the criminal act
in itself, drawing upon legal definitions, motives and means (Coleman, 2006; Piquero
and Schoepfer, 2010). Edelhertz (1970), for example, distinguishes three key elements
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