Organizational Illegality: Theoretical Integration and Illustrative Application

Research on organizational illegality coming from several disciplines converges on three central explanatory variables: environment (pressure, need, or distress); structure (corporate, industrial, or legal); and inner-directed choice processes (pathology, intent, or proactive exploitation).This paper briefly uses such a framework to identify and categorize a few of the theories of organizational illegality.A research strategy is then presented using the instances of prosecution for misrepresentation (deceptive advertising) as an example.