Extramarital affairs as occupational hazard: A structural, ethical (cultural) model of opportunity

Abstract

The media is filled with tales of careers and lives derailed by extramarital affairs often depicting such affairs in organizational/occupational terms: affairs begin in and/or upend organizational life and certain occupations are rife with cheaters. Yet, organizational science has been relatively silent on the topic. A review of literature from psychology, sociology, and economics provides an opening for the organizational researcher through the concepts of structural and cultural opportunity. Employing insights from organizational research on occupations and ethics, it is the intention of this article to develop models of structural and cultural (ethical) climate antecedents of extramarital affair opportunity.