Enterprise Theory
Definition
A theoretical framework that analyses organised crime as a rational business enterprise responding to market conditions. Associated with criminologist Dwight Smith, who argued that legal and illegal businesses operate on the same spectrum of enterprise, competing for customers in markets where legal supply is restricted.
- Associated with
- Criminologist Dwight Smith
- Core claim
- Organised crime is a rational business enterprise
- Framing
- Legal and illegal business on one enterprise spectrum
Common questions
How does enterprise theory differ from theories treating organised crime as pathology or ethnic conspiracy?+
Earlier models explained organised crime through deviance or ethnic-succession narratives. Smith's enterprise theory instead treats it as ordinary economic behaviour responding to restricted legal supply, which shifts analysis toward market conditions rather than the character of the actors.
What practical use does enterprise theory have in an investigation?+
It directs analysts to map an organisation's supply, demand, and competitive position like a business, which can reveal points of economic vulnerability, such as chokepoints in distribution, that a purely criminal-network view might miss.
Related terms
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