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- Knowledge of official ethical standards and tolerance towards corruption: An exploratory studyPublication . Sousa, Luis de; Clemente, Felippe; Calca, PatríciaCorruption is often defined as a deviant conduct from established legal and formal norms and expected ways of behaving in the exercise of official duties and the discharge of official responsibilities. Readiness to tolerate corruption will hinge primarily upon the evaluator’s understanding of what those ethical standards are. This means that citizens’ willingness to accept corruption as something “normal” to the functioning of democracy or “beneficial” to economic development is likely to be affected by how knowledgeable they are about the ethical standards of governing public office. Such knowledge can be instilled by academic and experiential learning. So, we question to what extent citizens’ knowledge of official ethical standards affect their tolerance towards corruption? Based on new individual level data collected from six focus groups conducted in Portugal, we show a possible negative association between the appropriate knowledge of official ethical standards and tolerance towards corruption. The results are exploratory, but sufficiently interesting to test our hypothesis with a larger sample.
- Why are individuals unwilling to report corruption? An inquiry into perception‐based definitions of corruption and employment‐related factorsPublication . Clemente, Felippe; Sousa, Luis de; Rego, Raquel; Calca, PatríciaDespite the increasing interest and investment in whistle-blowing regulations, policies, and mechanisms, people are still hesitant to report corruption. The existing literature explaining what deters people from reporting serious wrongdoing predominantly concentrates on either organisational factors or personal motivations. Only a limited number of studies integrate objective and subjective individual-level constraints on whistle-blowing. Using original survey data from Portugal, this article investigates two sets of individual-level factors that explain the reluctance to report corruption: employment-related characteristics (objective constraints) and perception-based definitions of corruption (subjective constraints). A regression analysis of the survey data reveals that individuals working in the private sector are less inclined to report corruption compared to public officials. This finding underscores the significance of job security in influencing people's willingness to report corruption. The results also indicate that individuals with a minimalist definition of corruption, perceiving it solely as a legal offence, are more hesitant to report corruption. This finding supports the notion that whistle-blowing policies should not be limited to reporting blatant legal violations instead of any suspected wrongdoing of corporate or public significance. Our study emphasises the need for whistle-blowing policies to not only establish secure and visible mechanisms for reporting serious wrongdoing within organisations, but also to raise awareness of how social norms and job security can impact individuals’ decisions to report such occurrences. This article contributes to whistle-blowing and governance research by shedding light on how perception-based definitions and judgements of corruption, as well as employment-related factors, can influence individuals’ willingness or unwillingness to report corruption.
- Politicians Support (and Voters Reward) Intra-Party Reforms to Promote TransparencyPublication . Pereira, Miguel Maria; Coroado, Susana; Sousa, Luis de; Magalhães, Pedro C.Political parties increasingly rely on self-regulation to promote ethical standards in office. The adoption of ethics self-regulation and its ability to induce change is likely to be a function of the responses from politicians and voters. Without external enforcement mechanisms, compliance requires support from legislators. In turn, if voters perceive self-regulation as cheap talk, officials have fewer incentives to acquiesce. The extent to which such efforts are rewarded by voters and supported by elected officials remains an open question. We examine this question in a paired conjoint experiment with elected officials and voters in Portugal and Spain. The results show that politicians support (and voters reward) financial disclosures, lobbying registries, and sanctions for MPs involved in corruption cases. Voters also reward term limits, and the effects are not moderated by ideological agreement. The findings suggest that parties can benefit from promoting transparency reforms and are not penalized by experimentation.