most assessments of corporate crime control policies, especially criminalization strategies, lack an empirical base. Deterrence is only presumed to work. Managers are assumed to fear criminal sanctions and hence will be more apt to adhere to the law if threatened with criminal prosecution. Firms will be less willing to commit crimes if criminal sanctions are likely. Yet the same criticism can be made of cooperative models.

The aim of this chapter is to bring additional evidence to bear on the question of corporate crime control. Why do corporations obey the law? How do deterrence (or criminalization) and compliance (or cooperative) strategies of corporate crime control fare in the world of managerial decision making? Data drawn from two factorial surveys (instruments that combine experimentally manipulated summaries with survey techniques) administered to MBA students and executives will be used to answer these questions along with others that have emerged from the preceding chapters. For instance:

• Does the salience of formal sanction threats vary by the degree to which managers are committed to crime?

• Do managers perceive sanction threats differently by sanction source (e.g., criminal, civil, or regulatory) and target (individual versus manger)?

• Do sanctions that are perceived as unfair produce more rather than less crime (i.e., is there a defiance effect)?

• How do formal and informal sanction threats compare in their prohibitory effects?

Study one

Vignette construction

In 1993 and 1994 a factorial survey was developed to explore the link between the causes of corporate crime and potential control strategies.