Compliance and leadership: the susceptibility of leaders to the risk of corruption in organizations

Abstract

In the field of organizational management, the term "compliance" designates the set of actions to mitigate risk and prevent corruption. Programs are composed by formal control systems, codes of ethics, educational actions, ombudsmen, and reporting channels--to mention the most recurrent, which vary according to the sector, the institutional culture, and the strategy. Leadership has a fundamental role in the process of compliance, not only due to its power to implement it, but precisely because it exercises this power, in itself, the object of reflections on ethics. The goal of this research was to evaluate the susceptibility of leaders to the risk of breaching organizational rules that involve ethical aspects. For quantitative investigation, we used social and descriptive statistical analysis of secondary data provided by ICTS Global, a company specialized in risk reduction. The study analyzed deals with non-probabilistic sampling by convenience, carried out between the years 2004 and 2008 with employees and candidates of 74 private companies located in Brazil. The final number of individuals studied is 7,267. The indicators analyzed are contained in the index of moral perception of comprehension of individual vision of the concerning hypotheses of ethical conflicts. According to the information obtained in the investigation, leaders are more willing to fail to comply. Paradoxically, the data also show that leaders are more loyal to organizations, raising the hypothesis that the bent toward moral integrity and loyalty to the organization are not necessarily simultaneous behaviors (it is possible that, motivated by loyalty, a leader might break away from individual principles). Based on the data and on bibliographic references, our final considerations point to the importance of considering systems from which leadership is recruited, compensated, promoted, developed, etc., in the prevention of corruption. Our data do not show that leaders are more corrupt, but that they have a greater disposition towards relaxing principles in professional circumstances.

Mitigating bribery risks to strengthen the corporate social responsibility in accordance with the ISO 37001

“…Many authors (Andersson, ; Bager, ; Chen, Xie, You, & Zhang, ; Cover & Mustafa, ; Heywood & Meyer‐Sahling, ; Kotchegura, ; Krasovec, Johannsen, Pedersen, & Deželan, ; Marchini et al, ; Matic, ; Rimšaitė, ; Witten, Parker, Holtmeier, & Koffer, ; Zoogah, ) have focused their research on exploring this societal problem in public sector organizations. However, this phenomenon affects the activities of all enterprises in society (Álvarez Etxeberria & Aldaz Odriozola, ; Amor‐Esteban, Galindo‐Villardón, García‐Sánchez, & David, ; Bellaubi & Boehm, ; Brenton‐Rule, Barbieri, & Lester, ; Dos Santos, Guevara, Amorim, & Ferraz‐Neto, ; Giang, Xuan, & Hai, ; Krishnamurti, Shams, & Velayutham, ; Lin & Chuang, ; Shapiro, ; Soreide, ; Witten et al, ). According to Repev () essentials of every society results from its versatility caused by people's specific individuality.…”

Corrupção organizacional e uma justificação decolonial para as práticas de whistleblowing

“…A tentativa de estabelecer uma teoria universal da corrupção, assim como sua respectiva forma de controle nas organizações públicas e privadas, já foi objeto de vários estudos ao longo da literatura brasileira (Brei, 1996;Freitas, 2005;Santos, Guevara, Amorim, & Ferraz-Neto, 2012;Santos, Guevara, & Amorim, 2013;Furtado, 2015) e internacional (Barsukova, 2014;Forsberg & Severinsson, 2015;Jávor & Jancsics, 2013;Kayes, 2006;Sööt, 2012). Autores dos campos da Administração e do Direito, por exemplo, têm se concentrado na dificuldade em se obter conformidade da conduta humana à norma.…”

Accountability and leadership in modern corporations

“…In this issue of einstein, the article by Santos et al (1) , "Compliance and leadership: the susceptibility of leaders to the risk of corruption in organizations", does not address specifically accountability…”

“…Nonetheless, it is clear in the article by Santos et al (1) , that the trend of top managers to damage their own personal principles in order to adjust to requirements of the company, particularly to financial results, and, therefore be loyal to the business guidelines, set a paradoxical situation as well as emotional tension for these managers. This would not happen if personal principles and those of the organizations were the same and were sincere and transparent.…”

“…The discussion put forward by Santos et al (1) incite us to go deeper in this debate at hospitals, contextualizing the expectations of our society as to leadership of large organizations of modern society, as well as the role played by hospitals and healthcare services in this society and accountability of their leaders. It stands out in einstein as an invitation for us to reflect, and to other investigations and publications as a way to express accountability of our organization in the current Brazilian scenario.…”