Does Corruption Have Social Roots? The Role of Culture and Social Capital

José Pena López (atilano.pena@udc.es) and José Sánchez Santos (santos67@udc.es)

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, vol. 122, issue 4, 697-708

Abstract: The aim of this work is to analyse the influence of sociocultural factors on corruption levels. Taking as starting point Husted (J Int Bus Studies 30:339–359, 1999 ) and Graeff (In: Lambsdorff J, Taube M, Schramm M (eds) The new institutional economics of corruption. Routledge, London, 2005 ) proposals, we consider both the interrelation between cultural dimensions and the diverse expressions of social capital with corruption. According to our results, the universalistic trust (linking and bridging social capital) constitutes a positive social capital that is negatively linked to corruption. In contrast, the particularistic levels of trust (bonding) can constitute a negative social capital directly related to corruption levels. Furthermore, cultures which are favourable to the legitimation of dependency relations and the formation of closed particularistic groups (power-distance and community factors) create a breeding ground for the development of these amoral rent-seeking structures. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Social capital; Corruption; Cultural factors; New Economic Sociology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1789-9

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