Corruption in international business: understanding the impact of anti-corruption measures on company practices and attitudes

Anti-corruption efforts over the past two decades have expanded to include a variety of measures ranging from international conventions (e.g. OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions 1997, UN Convention against Corruption, 2003) and industry initiatives (e.g. the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) to non-governmental organisation (NGO) initiatives (e.g. the Publish Way You Pay initiative, led by Global Witness) and NGO toolkits (e.g. Richard Holloway’s NGO Corruption Fighter’s Handbook). While these measures are undeniably essential to the fight against corruption it is also important to gauge their impact on the behaviour of companies with a view to assessing and improving the anti-corruption strategies. Existing survey data enables the identification of some general issues regarding company practices and attitudes to combating corruption and give some indication of limiting factors. These insights are a useful starting point but the survey findings are not directly comparable and provide only a descriptive, fragmented understanding of the issues. The present authors are engaged in an in-depth survey, aiming to provide a more thorough understanding of the impacts of different strategies and regulatory influences and how anti-corruption efforts might be strengthened. The survey is unique in targeting NGOs in order to investigate the role played by these organisations who are important stakeholders in the field of anti-corruption. This paper starts with an examination of the key finding of the previous surveys in order to provide a picture of the extent to which company attitudes to corruption have been explored and the broad themes that emerge. The insights identified in this section provide the context for the pilot study findings which are presented in the following section. Finally, some concluding observations and points for further research are offered