White-Collar Crime Essay -- Crime

Businesses are vulnerable to a variety of internal and external crime that affects an organization’s performance. White-collar crime is a problem affecting businesses in the U.S. and around the world, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue every year. This paper will identify the types of employee crimes focusing on theft and the perpetrators; examine the impact to businesses and explore how business can deal with these offenses. Mr. Smith places some extra highlighters and colored paper in his briefcase from the office’s supply closet for young Billy to use on his school project. Joanne has returned to her desk a 15 minutes late from her lunch break and is now surfing the web for airfare while on the phone long distance with her ailing grandmother to discuss plans to see her next month. Leonard supplements his hourly wage from working nights at the gas station by sneaking a couple scratch-off lottery tickets off the roll when the owner isn’t around. Mrs. Sara Swindle has been defrauding union members by diverting dues for her own use. Some of these examples may not necessarily be prosecuted or even discovered but nonetheless are examples of employee theft or white-collar crime. Businesses face a myriad of internal threats for their success; the focus for this paper is theft; including theft of cash, inventory and equipment. Other types of employee crime include: writing company checks, money laundering, processing fraudulent invoices, payroll fraud, falsifying revenue reports, customer identity theft, intellectual property theft, overstated expense reports and credit card fraud (Bressler, 2011). Long before credit card fraud and identity theft, business owners dealt with theft. There is a no more clear exampl... ...activity and its impact on business. The Entrepreneurial Executive, 16, 49-61. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.oak.indwes.edu/docview/885012416?accountid=6363 Kuratko, D. F., Hornsby, J. S., Naffziger, D. W., & Hodgetts, R. M. (2000). Crime and Small Business: An Exploratory Study of Cost and Prevention Issues in U.S. Firms. Journal Of Small Business Management, 38(3), 1-13. Retrieved from http://0-web.ebscohost.com.oak.indwes.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=56e11fdb-9475-4a64-9062-e0c057beace7%40sessionmgr11&vid=21&hid=15 Larson, E. (1985, January 14). Crook's tool: Computers turn out to be valuable aid in employee crime --- machines facilitate stealing, extortion and sabotage; west coast's robin hood --- you don't trust anybody. The Wall Street Journal, p. 1. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.oak.indwes.edu/docview/397889148?accountid=6363