The Criminal Bug: Volkswagen's Middle Management

Abstract

Not only does the 2015-16 Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal have the potential to destroy a $227 billion-dollar multinational company, but it contains eerie echoes of other recent white collar scandals that have claimed lives and cost the public trillions of dollars. Through a case study of Volkswagen, this Essay pioneers a new way to look at these scandals by focusing on their common element: the growing insulation and entrenchment of middle management to coordinate such large-scale wrongdoing.

Keywords: Volkswagen, VW, scandal, emissions, defeat device, emissions-control, case study, middle management, management, insulation, entrenchment, coordination, fraud, large-scale wrongdoing, disclosure-based regulation, drive, suppress, dissent, patterns, multinational, cat-and-mouse game, repeat behavior