The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business

9Internal investigations of white-collar crime

Petter Gottschalk

Introduction

White-collar crime is a crisis event that can challenge an organization’s viability (Piquero, 2012). Numerous white-collar crime events in the last decade have led to an increased awareness of the need to be prepared for the worst. When white-collar crime suspicions arise, a feasible action is to initiate an internal investigation by fraud examiners to establish whether or not wrongdoings have occurred (Gottschalk, 2015). Victims of white-collar crime include organizations themselves, banks, revenue services, customers, shareholders, employees, and suppliers. When white-collar crime is prosecuted, organizations are punished with substantial fines, while executives are ...