In conclusion, the notion of omertà as a culturally specific code of behavior essential to understanding the mafia seems to be, if not mistaken, at least superfluous. On the one hand, the policy of discretion is analytically identical to the measures taken by many different businesses to protect their industrial secrets. IBM, for instance, spends $50 million a year to guard its secrets and exerts particularly energetic pressure on its employees, both when they are recruited and when they leave (Freemantle 1986: 63ff.). On the other hand, it is just one aspect of a general attitude toward information gathering and manipulation—an attitude which relies as much on concealment as on revelation.

XREF: Connects to readings on organizational secrecy and how legitimate corporations protect industrial secrets similarly to criminal groups.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 103