Public Disorder and Business Victimization: Findings from a Survey of Female Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Despite a recent surge in research on crimes against the business sector, this literature has generally failed to contribute to the theoretical core of criminology. Drawing on a survey of female entrepreneurs in Finland, our study attends to public incivilities as an environmental source of business victimization. According to an influential article by Sampson and Raudenbush , the link between disorder and crime is mostly spurious, caused by intense levels of poverty and residential segregation. Finland is an example of a society with comparatively low rates of structural disadvantage. As such, it represents an informative national context to examine the empirical merits of the incivilities thesis. Findings from our research support the assumption that public disorder is an important environmental antecedent of business victimization.