All that glitters: a call for more research on corrupt entrepreneurship

Abstract

We add to recent calls for more research on corporate corruption and argue that entrepreneurship researchers need to pay more attention to entrepreneurs who engage in entrepreneurial activities that corrode institutions and undermine the rule of law: what we call corrupt entrepreneurship. We conceptualise corrupt entrepreneurs as individuals who simultaneously act as traditional entrepreneurs seeking out and exploiting opportunities to profit from institutional voids; as institutional entrepreneurs involved in the creation and maintenance of the institutional voids that they profit from; and as cultural entrepreneurs that draw on various cultural resources to legitimate themselves in the communities in which they operate in order to maintain community support for their activities. As an example, we discuss the Sicilian Mafia and briefly describe how the existence of an institutional void played a central role in the formation of the Sicilian Mafia, how it continues to profit from institutional voids, what it does to maintain the voids it profits from, and how it legitimises itself in the local community by helping members of the community mitigate problems caused by the institutional voids that they are complicit in creating and maintaining in the first place. Building on this discussion, we highlight important future directions for research on corrupt entrepreneurship.