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The corrupt organization

Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, dlevine{at}du.edu

This article explores the psychic meaning of corruption understood as an attack on norms of conduct in organizations. The primary focus is on why individuals fail to become securely attached to norms, and on the part played in this failure by certain key features of corruption: greed, arrogance, a sense of personal entitlement, the idea of virtue as personal loyalty, and the inability to distinguish between organizational and personal ends. The essay considers the moral dimension of the problem and suggests that conduct normally interpreted as corrupt often expresses a powerful attachment to primitive moral thinking rather than a rejection of morality.

Key Words: corruption • Enron • ethics • greed • organizations • psychodynamics

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