Understanding Corruption in Organizations: Development and Empirical Assessment of an Action Model

Despite a strong sensitization to the corruption problem and a large body of interdisciplinary research, scientists have only rarely investigated which motivational, volitional, emotional, and cognitive components make decision makers in companies act corruptly. Thus, we examined how their interrela...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of business ethics Vol. 82; no. 2; pp. 477 - 495
Main Authors Rabl, Tanja, Kühlmann, Torsten M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer 01.10.2008
Springer Netherlands
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Anticipation
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Business structures
Cognitive models
Corruption
Decision making
Desire
Education
Emotion
Ethics
Hypotheses
Interdisciplinary aspects
Investigations
Management
Modeling
Moral corruption
Motivation research
Philosophy
Political corruption
Quality of Life Research
Social exchange theory
Structural equation modeling
Studies
Theory of planned behavior
corruption in organizations
business ethics
corrupt actor
action model
corruption prevention and counter measures
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Summary:Despite a strong sensitization to the corruption problem and a large body of interdisciplinary research, scientists have only rarely investigated which motivational, volitional, emotional, and cognitive components make decision makers in companies act corruptly. Thus, we examined how their interrelation leads to corruption by proposing an action model. We tested the model using a business simulation game with students as participants. Results of the PLS structural equation modeling showed that both an attitude and subjective norm favoring corruption led to a desire to act corruptly. Given high perceived behavioral control, this desire was transformed into an intention that finally resulted in corrupt action. Components related to general private and professional goals did not allow for any prediction. Based on these results, we discuss preventative measures and methods for combating intra- and inter-organizational corruption.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-008-9898-6