IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v112y2013i3p417-436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Schemas and Corruption in Ugandan Public Procurement

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph Ntayi
  • Pascal Ngoboka
  • Cornelia Kakooza

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between moral schemas and corruption in public procurement. It adopts a moral schema framework to examine procurement-induced corruption from Uganda. Experiences, attitudes, and values of respondents are used to construct future behavior of public procurement staff. The schema framework was built around the premise that procurement-related corruption is a function of the social framework and human nature paradox, constructing logical justification for the acts of corruption. The study uses data from 474 public procurement staff to demonstrate that social identity, ethical egoistic, legislative, amoral, and religious moral schemas account for 78.51% of the variance in moral schema of respondents. All these schemas were found to be significant predictors, accounting for 73.3% of public procurement corruption. The paper urges managers of procuring and disposing entities to utilize moral scripts in reducing corruption. Managers are encouraged to engage in morally responsible behaviors to promote ethics and value-for-money transactions. The paper provides an alternative framework for examining corruption in sub-Saharan Africa where explicit elaboration of insights on corruption is still lacking. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Ntayi & Pascal Ngoboka & Cornelia Kakooza, 2013. "Moral Schemas and Corruption in Ugandan Public Procurement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 417-436, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:112:y:2013:i:3:p:417-436
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1269-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10551-012-1269-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-012-1269-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Swamy, Anand & Knack, Stephen & Lee, Young & Azfar, Omar, 2001. "Gender and corruption," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 25-55, February.
    2. Bryan W Husted, 1999. "Wealth, Culture, and Corruption," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 30(2), pages 339-359, June.
    3. Clarke, George R. G. & Lixin Colin Xu, 2002. "Ownership, competition, and corruption : bribe takers versus bribe payers," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2783, The World Bank.
    4. Federico Varese & Meir Yaish, 2000. "The Importance Of Being Asked," Rationality and Society, , vol. 12(3), pages 307-334, August.
    5. Hellman, Joel S. & Jones, Geraint & Kaufmann, daniel, 2000. ""Seize the state, seize the day": state capture, corruption, and influence in transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2444, The World Bank.
    6. Kuklinski, James H. & Luskin, Robert C. & Bolland, John, 1991. "Where Is the Schema? Going Beyond the “S” Word in Political Psychology," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1341-1380, December.
    7. Abigail Barr & Danila Serra, 2006. "Culture and Corruption," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-040, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Goldsmith, Arthur H & Veum, Jonathan R & Darity, William, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Psychological and Human Capital on Wages," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 815-829, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xuemei Xie & Guoyou Qi & Kevin Xiaoguo Zhu, 2019. "Corruption and New Product Innovation: Examining Firms’ Ethical Dilemmas in Transition Economies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 107-125, November.
    2. Dhar, Rajib Lochan, 2016. "Ethical leadership and its impact on service innovative behavior: The role of LMX and job autonomy," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 139-148.
    3. Nicholas Thom & Andrew Dawson, 2019. "Sustainable Road Design: Promoting Recycling and Non-Conventional Materials," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-12, November.
    4. Kumar, Satish & Sahoo, Saumyaranjan & Lim, Weng Marc & Dana, Léo-Paul, 2022. "Religion as a social shaping force in entrepreneurship and business: Insights from a technology-empowered systematic literature review," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    5. Debmalya Mukherjee & Saumyaranjan Sahoo & Satish Kumar, 2023. "Two Decades of International Business and International Management Scholarship on Africa: A Review and Future Directions," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 863-909, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dendi Ramdani & Arjen Witteloostuijn, 2012. "The Shareholder–Manager Relationship and Its Impact on the Likelihood of Firm Bribery," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 495-507, July.
    2. You, Jong-Sung & Khagram, Sanjeev, 2004. "Inequality and Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp04-001, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Mutascu, Mihai, 2009. "The effect of the government intervention in economy on corruption," MPRA Paper 16175, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Keith Blackburn & Niloy Bose & M. Emranul Haque, 2011. "Public Expenditures, Bureaucratic Corruption And Economic Development," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(3), pages 405-428, June.
    5. Pande, Rohini, 2008. "Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 50, pages 3155-3184, Elsevier.
    6. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    7. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders & Gemma Mcnulty & Akisato Suzuki, 2017. "Gender and Corruption in Business," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1486-1501, September.
    8. Debski, Julia & Jetter, Michael & Mösle, Saskia & Stadelmann, David, 2018. "Gender and corruption: The neglected role of culture," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 526-537.
    9. Lee, Wang-Sheng & Guven, Cahit, 2013. "Engaging in corruption: The influence of cultural values and contagion effects at the microlevel," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 287-300.
    10. Giorgio d’Agostino & Luca Pieroni, 2019. "Modelling Corruption Perceptions: Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asian Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 311-341, February.
    11. Noman Shaheer & Jingtao Yi & Sali Li & Liang Chen, 2019. "State-Owned Enterprises as Bribe Payers: The Role of Institutional Environment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 221-238, September.
    12. Judge, William Q. & McNatt, D. Brian & Xu, Weichu, 2011. "The antecedents and effects of national corruption: A meta-analysis," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 93-103, January.
    13. Rotondi, Valentina & Stanca, Luca, 2015. "The effect of particularism on corruption: Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 219-235.
    14. Negin, Vahideh & Abd Rashid, Zakariah & Nikopour, Hesam, 2010. "The Causal Relationship between Corruption and Poverty: A Panel Data Analysis," MPRA Paper 24871, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Claudia Trentini & Malinka Koparanova, 2013. "Corruption and entrepreneurship: does gender matter?," ECE Discussion Papers Series 2013_1, UNECE.
    16. Ayush B. Shrestha & Richard A. Bernardi & Susan M. Bosco, 2013. "The Propensity to Trust Others: Gender and Country Differences," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 2(2), pages 1-69, May.
    17. Sassi, Seifallah & Ben Ali, Mohamed Sami, 2017. "Corruption in Africa: What role does ICT diffusion play," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 662-669.
    18. Jean-Francois Arvis & Ronald E. Berenbeim, 2003. "Fighting Corruption in East Asia : Solutions from the Private Sector," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14749.
    19. Boateng, Agyenim & Wang, Yan & Ntim, Collins G. & Elmagrhi, Mohamed, 2024. "Institutions and corruption relationship: Evidence from African countries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:112:y:2013:i:3:p:417-436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.