Temporal Dynamics of Workplace Recidivism: A Career Course Investigation

Workplace recidivism, the repeated return to unethical or illegal conduct despite legal and reputational sanctions, remains a critical yet underexplored challenge in organizational research. High-profile cases, from Bernie Ebbers to Donald Trump, illustrate how misconduct can persist across careers. More broadly, evidence suggests that 30% to 60% of professionals who engage in wrongdoing become repeat offenders, while a substantial share of perpetrators remain employed, perpetuating cycles of misconduct within organizations.Despite its prevalence, research on recidivism has largely focused on criminal justice contexts and relied on cross-sectional designs, leaving its organizational dynamics poorly understood. This project will address this gap through one of the first comprehensive longitudinal investigations of workplace recidivism. We theorize that early-career exposure to peer perpetrators—and the characteristics of those peers—imprints enduring trajectories of misconduct and shapes future affiliations with other wrongdoers.Leveraging rich longitudinal data from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the China Securities Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) Database, we will examine recidivism across distinct institutional contexts. By integrating insights from career imprinting, social networks, and collective wrongdoing, this project will advance theory while offering actionable strategies to disrupt network-driven misconduct and curb persistent unethical behavior in organizations.