The handbook of business and corruption : cross-sectorial experiences

For years, corruption has been dismissed as a cultural phenomenon prevalent in developing countries, mirroring low salaries, weak infrastructure, disorganized administration and unstable political conditions. What this theory fails to explain, however, is why so many western multinational corporations have been involved in corruption scandals in recent years – even though most of these companies ostensibly had anti-corruption programs and monitoring systems in place. This book considers corruption in the business world in its broadest sense, including bribery and petty payments, nepotism and cronyism, gift-giving, embezzlement of public property and money laundering. It then explores corrupt behavior across different sectors in more detail in an effort to understand how corruption varies by industry. While a number of books dealing with corruption have been published over the years, little attention has been paid to the specifics of corruption in different industries and economic sectors. With contributions from some of the leading global experts in business ethics and law, this handbook will be an essential resource for both scholars and practitioners. Front Cover -- The Handbook of Business and Corruption Cross-Sectoral Experiences -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Introduction -- Part I: Explaining and Preventing Corrupt Practices -- Chapter 1 What is Organizational Corruption? -- Introduction -- A History of Definitions -- A General Definition -- Iterations of Corruption -- Parsing the General Definition -- Beyond the General Definition -- Definitions Matter -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 2 Corruption: Maximizing, Socializing, Balancing, and Othering -- Introduction -- The Corrupt Agent and the Structure -- Organizational Theories of Corruption -- The Philosophy of Corruption: From Corruption to Corruptions -- The Psychoanalysis of Corruption -- Conclusion and Implications -- References -- Chapter 3 Petty Corruption - Facilitating Payments and Grease Money -- Introduction -- The Features of Facilitating Payments -- The Ethics of Facilitating Payments -- The perspective of the person who receives the payment -- The perspective of the person who pays -- Other arguments on facilitating payments -- The Fight against Petty Corruption -- Legislative treatment of petty corruption -- The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). -- The OECD Convention -- The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) -- The U.K. Bribery Act (BA) -- The European Union -- The role of business organizations and civil society in combating facilitating payments -- The role of companies -- Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 4 The Impact of Disguised Bribes - Distorting the Basic Functions of Gift-Giving Practices -- Introduction -- Disguised Bribes, Bad Faith, and the Project-to-Be-Oneself (Sartre) -- The Cultural Function of Gift-Giving, as Distorted by Corrupt Practices -- The structuring/functional analysis of culture (Malinowski) The Handbook of Business and Corruption provides an overview of corrupt business practices in general and, more particularly, in different industry sectors, considering such practices from an ethical perspective.