The present anthology grew out of a long-standing interdisciplinary cooperation
of Heidelberg lawyers, criminologists, and sociologists who initially joined forces
to empirically test the perspective of “useful illegality” (Luhmann 1964) using
uncovered corruption cases. The decisive factor was the group’s observation that
only in a minority of cases did the judiciary succeed in tracing the managers’ illegal
activities to personal enrichment, sanctioning them accordingly, on the basis
of individual motives. Instead, the collective benefits, to increase company profitability,
appeared to be the central rationale to justify the participation of many
people with organizational membership in wrongdoing. If the costs of rule deviation
following the detection of the scandals did not materialize, then the risks
of engaging in misconduct would be worth it for company members and professional
groups.