Crime prevention effect of anti-corruption programs - German companies in the conflict between national and organizational culture -

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Kai-D. Bussmann
• Subject Area: Criminology
• Term: from 2011 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 183445704

As yet, no significant knowledge has been gained within the context of fighting corruption about the effectiveness of integrity-oriented corporate cultures and anti-corruption measures of German companies in the corrupt markets of foreign cultures. It is to be assumed that interactions exist among the particular corruption-prone cultures and their prevalent daily and professional practices and the preventive effects of German compliance systems. The data collected as part of the current project pertaining to non-German managers in foreign branch offices of German parent companies indicate that German companies are quite successful in transmitting the value-based compliance systems established in Germany to the branches abroad. However, loss of effectiveness in the anti-corruption programmes at foreign branch offices does exist. It is not possible to identify the cause for this loss of effectiveness based on the data currently available. The continuation of the research project intends to investigate and analyse the influence of selected cultures and their corruption practices in daily and professional life on the effectiveness of anti-corruption programmes and the corporate culture of German companies abroad. This research question is to be investigated in terms of German companies operating in Russia, China and India with Germany as the reference country. Access to the field in these countries is guaranteed based on previous experience with the project. In these four countries, not only will persons within German companies be surveyed, but also a comparable random sample from the professional population. For both groups, selected validated questionnaires from the current study will be used, supplemented by corruption-relevant dimensions from international cultural research and by questions about typical local practices in daily and professional life. Using a matching technique, those surveyed at German companies are to be compared with those surveyed in the particular local population regarding perceived corruption in professional and daily life. With the intended research, this project no longer limits itself to analysing the significance of corporate culture within German cultural circles, but rather now intends to decisively investigate what influence a countrys culture and the daily and professional life of a particular region have on a company. By doing this, a new page in corruption research will open: What importance can be accorded to external influences on the effectiveness of internal corporate anti-corruption programmes? This question particularly affects companies located in a foreign, corruption-prone social and cultural environment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants