PROFITS, PRESSURE AND CORPORATE LAWBREAKING

While neglect, exploitation, denial of human rights and abuse of nursing home residents can be found in both non-profit and for-profit nursing homes, substantially higher non-compliance with the law is found among for-profits. A significant source of non-compliance is pressure on senior management from proprietors to reach financial goals that can only be attained by cutting comers on quality of care. This source of non-compliance is stronger among for-profits than non-profits in a sample of 410 Australian nursing homes. These data therefore supply more systematic support for what has been a commonplace observation in the corporate crime literature: that pressure for lawbreaking comes from the top down and from profits.