Recent U.S. presidential administrations are cultivating quite the reputation for scandal, with Donald Trump’s perceived conflicts of interest, Barack Obama’s seemingly unbounded surveillance program, or George W. Bush’s controversial justification for invading Iraq. Corporate scandals, meanwhile — think a United Airlines passenger being assaulted, exploding Samsung telephones, or Bernie Madoff — can arouse similar, or sometimes even greater, public outrage. Yet between a typical political scandal and a garden-variety corporate one, the latter is generally the lesser of two evils. Many...