How Do Individuals Justify and Rationalize their Criminal Behaviors in Online Romance Fraud?

Online romance fraud (ORF) is a growing concern with such serious negative consequences as financial loss or suicide to the victim. Majority of empirical studies on online romance fraud using attachment, deception, protection motivation and relation theories focus on the victim. While neutralization...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information systems frontiers 2022-04, Vol.24 (2), p.475-491
Main Authors: Offei, Martin, Andoh-Baidoo, Francis Kofi, Ayaburi, Emmanuel W., Asamoah, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boundary conditions
Business and Management
Context
Control
Crime
Fraud
Information systems
IT in Business
Management of Computing and Information Systems
Motivation
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Risk
Systems Theory
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Summary:Online romance fraud (ORF) is a growing concern with such serious negative consequences as financial loss or suicide to the victim. Majority of empirical studies on online romance fraud using attachment, deception, protection motivation and relation theories focus on the victim. While neutralization offers insights into how individuals justify their deviant behaviors, the results have not been consistent in different contexts. In the ORF context, offenders may not only rely on justifying techniques but also rationalize their actions by denying risk both to the victim and the offender. Thus, drawing from the neutralization and denial of risk theories, we develop a research model to explain how online romance offenders justify and rationalize their intended criminal activities. To confirm our theoretical model, we collected 320 responses from individuals at Internet Cafés alleged to be online romance fraud hotspots. Our results highlight the boundary conditions of neutralization techniques in the context of online romance fraud. The study shows that denial of risk, a rationalization mechanism, moderates the relationship between denial of victim, a justification technique, and intention to commit romance fraud. This insight advances the frontiers of neutralization theory. We offer both theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
ISSN:1387-3326
1572-9419
DOI:10.1007/s10796-020-10051-2