Book Review: Corporate and Governmental Deviance: Problems of Organizational Behaviour in Contemporary Society
| Author | John Braithwaite |
| Published date | 01 September 1984 |
| Date | 01 September 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000486588401700310 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
186
BOOK
REVIEWS
(1984) 17
ANZJ
Crim
Of
particular significance is the book's Australasian content:
BHP
is
the
focus of
two case studies:
one
on
the
Appin Mine Disaster, and another concerning
carcinogenic emissions from
the
coke ovens at Port Kembla. Sharp Corporation's
deceptive advertising of microwave ovens in violation of the
Trade
Practices
Act
is
the
basis
of
another.
One
chapter
is devoted to
the
incidence
of
asbestosis amongst
Aboriginal employees of James Hardie Industries and
the
remaining antipodean
case involves allegations
of
negligence and coverup on the
part
of
Air
New Zealand
management in relation to the
Mount
Erebus crash.
The
authors conclude
that
unlike most street criminals, corporations and their
executives are acutely sensitive to the prospect or to the reality of acquiring an
anti-social reputation.
In
most of the cases under review, adverse publicity did lead
to some degree of ameliorative change on the part of the corporate offender.
The
nature
of corporate response varied: in the James Hardie and
BHP
cases, it
took
the
form of expensive technological adaptation.
Other
firms undertook significant
organizational restructuring, designed to improve the flow
of
information to senior
management and thus to minimize the likelihood of future transgressions being
concealed from the board of directors.
Fisse and Braithwaite also noted that the impact of adverse publicity often
extended beyond the offending corporation, sensitizing
other
companies, trade
unions, and even governments to potentially criminogenic structures and
environments, and inspiring significant reforms in law, regulation, and
management.
In the final chapter they discuss the feasibility of publicity sanctions as a
sentencing option available to judges.
The
authors review and rebut anumber of
possible objections to this type of sentence, then cite examples where such sanctions
have
been
imposed. They conclude that the jurisdiction optimally armed against
corporate illegality would thus have at its disposal not only an array of civil remedies
and the conventional criminal penalties of fine and imprisonment,
but
also such
options as community service orders and publicity sanctions.
The
book
is well written, thought provoking, and exceptionally well documented:
there are 67 pages of notes following the text. The authors, sensitive to the issue of
sampling bias, reached their conclusions with great care, and avoid unwarranted
generalizations.
Theorists of social control will find it interesting that public humiliation plays a
significant role outside of traditional or non-western cultures: the authors have
shown
that
the threat of adverse publicity can serve to restrain anti-social behaviour
on the
part
of the most powerful institutions of advanced industrial society. Those
interestedin white collar crime generally and the sanctioning of corporate offenders
in particular will regard this as a landmark work. Fisse and Braithwaite have made
an important contributrion to
our
understanding of corporate illegality and its
control.
P
GRABOSKY
Canberra
Corporate
and
Governmental
Deviance: Problems of Organizational
Behaviour
in
Contemporary
Society,
edited
by MDavid
Ermann
and
Richard J
Lundman,
New York, Oxford University Press (1982) 294 pp, $11.99 (paper).
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