Agency theory and financial crime: the paradox of the opportunistic executive
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to philosophically address the issue of managerial opportunism and to describe the paradox of the opportunistic executive, particularly when the CEO could be considered as a “criminal-to-be”. Design/methodology/approach It will be seen to what extent governance mechanisms really contribute to prevent managerial opportunism, particularly through compensation packages (“financial carrots”). Then, Oliver E. Williamson’s viewpoint will be analyzed on opportunism, as his theory has largely influenced the way agency theories actually define managerial opportunism. Williamson was thinking opportunism without referring to philosophical works. The gap in exploring three basic types of opportunism will be filled: the Smithian egoist, the Hobbesian egoist and the Machiavellian egoist. Findings The Smithian egoist tries to reach an equilibrium between self-interest and compassion, while the Hobbesian egoist is motivated by self-interest, desire of power and the attitude of prudence. The Machiavellian egoist is always searching for power and makes followers’ fear arising. The way governance mechanisms and structures should be designed and implemented could be quite different if the CEO actually behaves as a Smithian, Hobbesian or Machiavellian egoist. CEO’s propensity to commit financial crime could largely vary from one type to another: low risk (Smithian egoist), medium risk (Hobbesian egoist) or high risk (Machiavellian egoist). Research limitation/implications Smith’s, Hobbes’ and Machiavelli’s philosophy was chosen because the agency theory sometimes refers to it, when defining the notion of opportunism. Other philosophies could also be analyzed to see to what extent they are opening the door to opportunism (for example, Spinoza). Originality/value The paper analyzes managerial opportunism from a philosophical viewpoint. Whether executives are Smithian, Hobbesian or Machiavellian egoists, their opportunism cannot give birth to similar behaviors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.023 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".