Hired professional to hired gun: An identity theory approach to understanding the ethical behaviour of professionals in non-professional organizations

Most recent major financial scandals have come about with the assistance, tacit or active, of highly trained professionals whose ethical responsibilities were thereby violated. This article addresses the question of why this might happen. It argues that the problem may lie in the adoption of a common prescription, namely that to be effective, in-house lawyers need to be part of the corporation's strategic decision-making process. But, paradoxically, in so doing, the lawyers' identities might become modified such that the approach they take to handling ethical dilemmas becomes more like that of their non-lawyer colleagues, thus losing some of the benefits of their professionalism. The results of a postal survey of Canadian corporate counsel provide supporting evidence for this conclusion.