**4.3 Corporate executives justify/rationalize fraudulent behavior (Rationalization)**

A corporate environment that is preoccupied with monetary success, and that implicitly or explicitly allows corporate executives to exploit/disregard regulatory controls, also provides justification/rationalization for success by any means such as fraud. In this regard, the American Dream is a mixed blessing, providing justification/rationalization for both the best and the worst elements of the American character and society (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994, p.7), or in the words of sociologist Robert K. Merton, "A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior'" (Merton 1968, p.200).3 Since monetary success is inherently open-ended, that is, it is always possible in principle to have more money; the American Dream offers "no final stopping point," and it requires "never-ending achievement." (Passas 1990, p.159). Therefore, the desire to accumulate money is relentless; it entices corporate executives to pursue their monetary goals by any means necessary and provides justification/rationalization for their monetary success by deviant means such as fraud.
