Crimes corporativos: O espectro do genocídio ronda o mundo

Exploitation of workers, communities and resources has always occurred, although it is not a central topic in the history of management, whose main narrative is urgency in the pursuit of efficiency and the right solutions. However, crimes, misconduct, unethical behavior and corporate social irresponsibility have become increasingly common, thus calling for reflections on the relevance of addressing these issues in the academic field and in management practice. In this essay, we start from the premise that corporate crime must be understood according to its multidisciplinary nature, and we focus our efforts on discussing management issues to argue that corporate crime is part of companies’ operations to support contemporary capitalism. We begin by addressing the power of corporations as the main force of contemporary capitalism in its form of extreme concentration of corporate wealth and ownership. Then we discuss the seriousness of corporate crimes and how they resemble genocide. We close with our considerations on why organizations become criminal and present a way to prevent corporate crime.