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Photo of Eugene F. Soltes

Unit: Accounting and Management

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(617) 495-6480

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Areas of Interest

  • crime
  • disclosure strategy

Eugene F. Soltes

Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration

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Eugene Soltes is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School where his research focuses on corporate misconduct and fraud, and how organizations design cultures and compliance systems to confront these challenges. He teaches in several of the school’s executive education programs and was the recipient of the Charles M. Williams Award for outstanding teaching.

Professor Soltes’ work on corporate misconduct and fraud culminated in the book Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal, which was described by Kirkus Reviews as “a groundbreaking study” on white-collar criminality. The book explores why often wealthy and successful executives engage in deception. The investigation draws on more than seven years of interaction with nearly fifty of the most high-profile former executives. The book refutes popular explanations of why seemingly successful executives engage in fraud and shows that most executives make decisions the way we all do—on the basis of intuitions and gut feelings. The trouble, Soltes shows, is that these gut feelings are often poorly suited for the modern business world and often lead to the harmful acts that we so often read about in the news.

At the organizational level, Professor Soltes examines how firms voluntarily disclose information to investors, employees, and regulators. This research has been published in leading finance, accounting, and economics journals and has resulted in numerous awards including the Hillcrest Behavioral Finance Award, California Corporate Finance Conference Award, and the Financial Research Association Best Paper Award.

Professor Soltes is a popular keynote speaker and frequently advises firms about their compliance programs and training. He is regularly invited to speak to regulators, including the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Treasury, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Professor Soltes’ research has been widely quoted by the media including in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, NPR, and The Economist.

Prior to joining the faculty of the Harvard Business School, Professor Soltes received his PhD and MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his AM in statistics and AB in economics from Harvard University.

He lives in Cambridge with his wife, a rheumatologist, and two young children.

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Featured Work Publications Awards & Honors
  1. Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

    "A spectacular achievement" - Library Journal

    From the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, the failings of corporate titans are regular fixtures in the news. But what drives wealthy and powerful people to white-collar crime? Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes draws from extensive personal interaction and correspondence with nearly fifty former executives as well as the latest research in psychology, criminology, and economics to investigate how once-celebrated executives become white-collar criminals. The product of seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history, Why They Do It is a breakthrough look at the dark side of the business world.

    Soltes reveals how the usual explanations fail to tell the whole story of why many seemingly successful people go over the line. White-collar criminals are not merely driven by excessive greed or hubris, nor do they usually carefully calculate costs and benefits before breaking the law. Instead, Soltes shows that most of the executives who committed crimes made decisions the way we all do—on the basis of their intuitions and gut feelings. The trouble is that these gut feelings are often poorly suited for the modern business world where leaders are increasingly distanced from the consequences of their decisions and the individuals they impact.

    With the increasing globalization of business threatening us with even more devastating corporate misconduct, the lessons Soltes draws in Why They Do It are needed more urgently than ever.


In the News

26 Jan 2018
New York Law Journal
The Psychology of White-Collar Crime, and Why It Matters
07 Nov 2017
Strategy + Business
Best Business Books 2017: Narratives
27 Jun 2017
McKinsey
What CEOs are reading in 2017
01 Dec 2016
WBUR: Radio Boston
What Drives White Collar Criminals To Break The Law?
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