Social and environmental responsibility are not simply the opposite of irresponsibility; firms often exhibit both simultaneously. Research shows that stakeholders rarely reward responsible behavior but strongly punish misconduct—for example, consumers demand a 28% price discount to purchase from an irresponsible firm. Misconduct arises when incentives, opportunities, and rationalizations align, consistent with the fraud triangle, but is also shaped by multilevel factors: individual “bad apples,” issue-specific features, organizational cultures (“bad barrels”), and broader institutional conditions (“bad orchards”). The Dieselgate scandal exemplifies how personal motives, weak governance, cultural pressures, and lax regulation jointly produce corporate wrongdoing. A behavior is likely unethical when individuals would feel embarrassed if exposed, believe they can “get away with it,” would not want to be treated similarly, or would be uncomfortable if the action were publicized. Such criteria highlight that ethical decision-making depends not only on rules and compliance but on reflective judgment, transparency, and accountability.