NCJ Number
83801
Date Published
1981
Length
213 pages
Annotation
Lockheed Corporation's payments in Japan in pursuit of aircraft sales demonstrate current problems in assessing culpability for organizational behavior.
Abstract
A case study of Lockheed's corporate activity beginning 10 years prior to its alleged misbehavior shows that Lockheed's payments, widely characterized as bribery, were more akin to extortion. Both the legislative history and experiences of other corporations appear to support the view that the foreign payments were responses to extortionate demands by foreign officials. Although testimony before several congressional committees and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission provided evidence of extortion in many cases (rather than bribery), the evidence was overlooked in subsequent legislation. The predisposition of legislators to frame legislation that criminalized corporate bribery behavior in the face of evidence that such corporate behavior was precipitated by the extortion behavior of foreign officials was due to the influence of prevalent white-collar crime ideology. The influence of ideology upon legislation in the face of inadequate or contradictory evidence can also be seen in the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968, where some provisions are designed to combat organized crime as interpreted from the Valachi hearings, as well as legislation derived from the perceived campaign abuses associated with the Watergate scandal. The subsequent legislation in the latter case made no attempt to rectify the extortionate elements of various kinds of campaign solicitations. Useful public policy outcomes will only occur when satisfactory explanations of organizational behavior emerge. Seven existing theories of organizational deviance are presented and comparatively assessed relative to the Lockheed case. Twenty footnotes and about 180 references are provided. (Author abstract modified)