There are two explanations of organizational crime. The dominant one assumes that people make discrete decisions and develop positive dispositions to engage in crime before embarking on criminal behavior. An emerging alternative assumes that people often embark on criminal behavior through a process and without first developing positive dispositions.

In this paper, Professors Donald Palmer and Michael Maher review the dominant explanation of organizational crime, delve into its two main variants, and provide examples of each. They also review the emerging alternative explanation and outline a variant of this approach that analyzes collective corruption, a form of crime that involves the sustained coordination of multiple organizational participants.