The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals

by Guido Palazzo, Ulrich Hoffrage

From the creators of the theory of ethical blindness comes an investigation into how corporate scandals happen, revealing the common pattern behind them and how your organization can avoid them

Too often, the stories of corporate scandals are narrated like Hollywood movies in which once-celebrated CEOs are unmasked as sociopaths and ultimately convicted for their crimes. What we fail to realize, however, is that most bad things are done by average people with honorable values and without bad intentions.

In The Dark Pattern, two experts in business ethics and decision-making challenge the conventional view that corporate misconduct happens because of a handful of bad actors. Instead, the book shows how entire organizations can fall off the moral cliff because good people become ethically blind.

Drawing on the latest insights from behavioral science, the authors identify nine toxic elements that lead to corporate scandals and offer nine actionable lessons for building morally resilient organizations. Essential reading for business leaders, The Dark Pattern offers real-world guidance for defending companies against the subtle dynamics of moral erosion.

Genres: Nonfiction

269 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 3, 2025

Reviews

[Gia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Context can be stronger than reason and stronger than values. It can distort people’s perception of reality to such an extent that they can no longer see the ethical or legal dimension of their decision.” (13)

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Book Group for an Advanced Reader Copy of The Dark Pattern. This book is incredibly timely and important and there are points where it reals simultaneously like a manual for corporate ethics and also a self-help book. The examples used were compelling for their argument and I found I learned a lot more than what I had known previously about the scandals presented.

The big takeaway from this books is that context and culture matter. But beyond that, this book provides readers with language about how to identify and name situations, leadership traits, and other things happening around them in the work place.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best professional book I have read this year! Highly recommend this book for any manager, supervisor, and/or leader in both private and public sectors. Using short stories and analysis the authors outline the pitfalls that open up in a culture of make it happen for short term goals and how to overcome them.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not So Hidden, Yet Authors Explain In Ways Perhaps Others Have Not Considered. This is one of those books that reads as though you've always known exactly what the authors are presenting... you just never considered actually breaking it out exactly like this. Part Corporate Leadership, part Corporate Ethics, and part Self Help, it is a guide to thinking ethically even in tough situations - lest you find yourself and your company embroiled in scandals as infamous as the ones detailed herein (and others far less famous, yet impactful).

Speaking as someone who *has* worked in one of the largest companies in the world (a global megacorporation generally in the lower half of the Fortune 50 the entire time I worked there), this is one that corporate leaders are going to *love* so that they can claim they are doing something about corporate ethics/ education... so we'll see how much those same companies really take to heart the actual message of this text and truly make changes across the board, rather than just dictating to crew dogs some (usually not completely thought out, at least at the lowest levels) written in stone and just as hard to adapt rules to follow that will change with the next corporate ethics book Leadership reads. Hell, maybe they can even save some money and just buy a lot of copies of this book rather than hiring expensive "consultants" to tell them the exact same thing... *because they read this book*.

But seriously, having been involved in the mentorship program at that employer as a mentor to more junior colleagues, this is absolutely a book I would have recommended they read, and indeed even in my current role where I also help mentor a junior colleague, I'm absolutely going to recommend this book to both my boss and my colleague. It really does lay things out quite clearly, at least so far as its framework goes.

The one criticism I have, though not rising quite to the level of a star deduction, is that its application of its framework can feel at times forced and at other times a touch too heavy handed or even myopic. Yes, it *technically* fits with both Enron and Theranos as described... but there were absolutely other factors in both of those situations that were just as critical to their scandals that *don't* fit the overall framework as neatly which were ignored or explained away with essentially a hand wave.

But read this book anyway. It really is quite solid, and it absolutely gives off the "I always knew this" impression... even when you clearly didn't think of it in these exact terms or framework, and these exact terms and framework may indeed help you to be a more ethical worker and leader.

Very much recommended.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 ★) The Dark Pattern is a meta-analysis of corporate scandals and wrongdoing, focusing on why and how the ostensibly otherwise decent people involved could do the things they did. The book is a sandwich of case studies of different corporations, surrounded by the framework with which the authors analyze them. The case studies focus, for the most part, on some of the more notable corporate scandals — Enron, Theranos, Wells Fargo, Boeing, etc. I felt that especially for those that have full books already written about them, the case study analysis in this book felt a little flat. I think that the chapters about the framework of analysis were probably the strongest in the book. Digging into the actual framework, I think that while it is useful, the authors’ application of it goes a step too far at times. It is one thing to say that there were contributing and mitigating factors to the Theranos scandal, and another entirely to say that there were no bad apples present.

My thanks to Public Affairs and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy.

[Nienke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important book to read for business leaders and beyond. And at times a hard book to read since as it states “good people can make bad decisions,” and often a slippery slope leads via incremental steps, with ambiguity, perceived unfairness to horrible outcomes

When reading these scandals it is so easy to think, it will not happen to me. Really? And even if it does, would I speak up, voice concerns? I, like many others, would like to think the answer is yes.

Reading books like these help with that and make me doubt less that the answer will be positive.

Therefore good to reread, read other books on scandals and see the Netflix documentaries on that. Like flu vaccines help prevent disease, doing this makes me hopeful that I the chances of sliding on that slippery slope will be less.

[Florin Grigoriu · Rating 5 out of 5]

accurate handbook on scandal, their motivation and patterns of behavior.
The book extract common patterns, get examples, and luckily sales the reader with solutions.

looking back on this book, i remember of a similar pattern book but in a totally different domain : the epic gang of 4's "design Patterns".
This is design patterns for integrity aware cultures, examples are from big corporations, but it can apply to small teams just as well.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What’s wild is last year I read the book “On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It” by David Livingstone Smith — a book that focuses on genocide and other crimes against humanity — and the “dark pattern” that leads normal people to commit and abet those violent atrocities sounds almost exactly like the pattern that Palazzo and Hoffrage detail in their latest book about corporate scandals. Chilling. And illuminating.