Substance abuse and workplace fraud: evidence from physicians

We examine the relation between worker substance abuse and workplace fraud in a sample of medical doctors. Relative to their peers, we observe that doctors engaging in substance abuse are between 50 and 100 times more likely to commit fraud in a given year. This result is consistent with research su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Millar, Melanie (Author) ; White, Roger M. (Author) ; Zheng, Xin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2023
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B G40
B Impulsivity
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Delay discounting
B Fraud
B Substance Abuse
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Summary:We examine the relation between worker substance abuse and workplace fraud in a sample of medical doctors. Relative to their peers, we observe that doctors engaging in substance abuse are between 50 and 100 times more likely to commit fraud in a given year. This result is consistent with research suggesting that substance abuse both creates financial pressures and impairs the functioning of cognitive self-regulatory mechanisms. Our results are robust in within-subject tests and between-subject tests, as well as in tests using instrumental variables that exploit exogenous variation in the state-level availability of opioids, a commonly abused substance.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05065-6