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Why They Do It

Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

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About this listen

Rarely does a week go by without a well-known executive being indicted for engaging in a white-collar crime. Perplexed as to what drives successful, wealthy people to risk it all, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes spent seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history - from the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford.

Soltes refutes popular explanations of why seemingly successful executives engage in crime. White-collar criminals, he shows, are not merely driven by excessive greed or hubris, nor do they usually carefully calculate the costs and benefits before breaking the law. Instead, he shows that most of these executives make decisions the way we all do - on the basis of their intuitions and gut feelings.

Based on extensive interaction with nearly 50 former executives, Soltes provides insights into why some saw the immediate effects of misconduct as positive, why executives often don't feel the emotions most people would expect, and how acceptable norms in the business community can differ from those of the broader society.

©2016 Eugene Soltes (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Business Ethics Crime Economics Social Sciences True Crime White Collar & Corporate Crime Workplace & Organisational Behavior Workplace Culture Business Management Emotions Taxation Law Capitalism Criminal Minds White Collar Crime
All stars
Most relevant
interesting insight into the life and reasons of a fraudster. very Informative well read. well worth a listen.

Good listen.

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"it did not seem like a bad crime when I started doing it, not like I mugged an old lady for her handbag" seems to be the general excuse of these guys who fiddled accounts/stocks etc for millions. some really honest chats with people who moved over the line into a grey area and then found they could not stop digging a hole for themselves

a great insight to white collar crime

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I thought this book started really strongly - but I got pretty bored by the end.

I got bored...

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