It’s Not Just About the Mafia! Conceptualizing Business–Society Relations of Organized Violence

While there is some scholarship in management and organization studies on forms of organized violence, it has rarely focused on the role of organized violence within wider business–society and governance relations. In this article, we argue that conceptualizing the role and capacity of the state is still paramount, precisely because it is normally the state that holds a monopoly on violence. Yet this state monopoly has been continuously eroded as private firms and civil society actors are increasingly involved in paramilitaries, trafficking, mafia-like and terrorist organizing, and other forms of organized violence. To help management and organization scholars appreciate and make sense of these dynamics in contemporary economic affairs, this article puts forward a conceptualization of business–society relations of organized violence. We develop six propositions that seek to understand organized violence within what we call the governance triangle of state–firm–civil society relations. These propositions give rise to three “doomsday scenarios”: 1) rise of military dictatorships, 2) rise of private security monopolies and oligopolies, and 3) rise of civil wars. We conclude the article by outlining the implications of such a violence-based view for management and organization scholars.