Organizational wrongdoing refers to organizational actions that violate legal, ethical, or social standards or conventions. Stakeholders perceive these organizational actions as deviating from [Page 559]their general expectations of normal organizational behavior. Organizational wrongdoing can generate high levels of initial uncertainty, and it can have negative consequences for the organization, its stakeholders, and/or society at large.

Organizational wrongdoing may involve multiple actors with multiple perspectives, and it may lack a singular solution. In this way, organizational wrongdoing can be construed as a complex or wicked problem because of the difficulty for an organization, its stakeholders, and society at large to concur on “what happened.” This complexity will naturally generate discourse between an organization and its stakeholders that negotiates reality. This entry examines the types of organizational wrongdoing, ...