---
title: "Does misconduct spread through corporate networks?"
description: "Corporate misconduct, reputational risk and corporate scandals appear on 90 recent papers across the management, finance and accounting journals, mostly one firm at a time. Firms share directors, auditors, suppliers and bankers. Does misconduct travel along those links, and can network position predict who is next?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/corporate-misconduct-contagion
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/corporate-misconduct-contagion.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["management", "governance"]
keywords: ["corporate misconduct", "reputational risk", "corporate scandals"]
---

# Does misconduct spread through corporate networks?

Corporate misconduct, reputational risk and corporate scandals appear on 90 recent papers across the management, finance and accounting journals, mostly one firm at a time. Firms share directors, auditors, suppliers and bankers. Does misconduct travel along those links, and can network position predict who is next?

## What prompted this

Since October 2025, 90 papers carry a scandal, corporate-misconduct, corporate-social-irresponsibility, reputation-damage, crisis-communication or misconduct keyword (31 in management journals, 30 in finance, 11 in economics, 10 in accounting): "corporate misconduct" on 22, "reputational risk" on 21, "corporate social irresponsibility" on 9, "crisis communication" on 8, "corporate scandals" on 5.

## Questions

- Are firms that share a director or auditor with a firm caught in misconduct more likely to be caught later, and does the link run through practices or through enforcement attention?
- When a scandal hits one firm, do customers and investors punish its peers, and do the peers change behaviour?
- Can network measures improve the prediction of enforcement actions beyond firm characteristics?

## Data that could help

Enforcement actions and restatements (Audit Analytics, SEC releases), director networks (BoardEx), auditor identities and supply chain links.

## Next step

Build the director network of listed firms and test whether a board link to a sanctioned firm predicts later sanctions, controlling for industry and size.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| corporate misconduct | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 6, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 3, 1, 3, 3, 1, 4, 1, 0, 2, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 0 | 59 |
| reputational risk | 2 | #1303 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 2, 3, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 4, 0, 4, 3, 2, 2, 0, 1, 0, 2, 4, 2 | 47 |
| corporate scandals | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 | 11 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Does misconduct spread through corporate networks?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/corporate-misconduct-contagion

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-corporate-misconduct-contagion,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Does misconduct spread through corporate networks?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/corporate-misconduct-contagion}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).