Title: Criminal entrepreneurial behaviour

Authors: Petter Gottschalk

Addresses: Department of Organization and Leadership, Norwegian School of Management BI, Nydalsveien 37 0442 Oslo, Norway

Abstract: While entrepreneurship is normally researched as something positive, this paper illustrates the dark sides of the construct. This conceptual research paper applies entrepreneurship literature to generate new insights into entrepreneurship in organised crime and entrepreneurs in criminal organisations. Criminal entrepreneurship is found in organised crime, where criminal entrepreneurs choose to organise a criminal business enterprise in order to exploit illegal market opportunities. Entrepreneurial opportunities can be exploited in a variety of ways, depending on strategy and available resources. As organised crime is growing locally as well as globally, law enforcement agencies need to develop their understanding of strategic criminal entrepreneurship. Based on perspectives in this paper, the dark side of entrepreneurship needs to be further explored within both the legitimate and illegitimate business sector in the local as well as global perspective in future research.

Keywords: criminal entrepreneurs; criminal business; organised crime; criminal organisation; crime strategy; illegal markets; criminal entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/JIBED.2010.035200

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 2010 Vol.5 No.1, pp.63 - 76

Published online: 14 Sep 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article