Organizational corruption imposes a steep cost on society, easily dwarfing that of street crime.
Once a corrupt decision or act produces a positive outcome and is included in organizational memory, it is likely to be used again in the future.
In a real sense, an organization is corrupt today because it was corrupt yesterday.
Leaders do not have to actually engage in corruption to serve as role models: rewarding, condoning, ignoring, or otherwise facilitating corruption—whether intentionally or not, or explicitly or not—often sends a clear signal to employees.
How can a group hold a worldview so at odds with the wider culture and not appear to be greatly conflicted by it? The answer may lie in the distinction between particularism and universalism. An individual develops social identities specific to the social domains, groups and roles—and accompanying subcultures—that he or she occupies.
In the case of corruption, this myopia means that an otherwise ethically-minded individual may forsake universalistic or dominant norms about ethical behavior in favor of particularistic behaviors that favor his or her group at the expense of outsiders.
An intriguing finding is that corrupt individuals tend not to view themselves as corrupt.
Like the sirens of Greek mythology, the rationalizing ideologies are highly seductive. They offer not only to excuse actors from their misdeeds but to encourage them to forget the misdeeds or reframe them as something necessary and even desirable.
When bad apples produce a bad barrel through institutionalization, the barrel itself must be repaired: only systemic responses can reverse systemic normalization.
Once corruption sets in, the mutually reinforcing processes of institutionalization, rationalization, and socialization create an unholy trinity that actively resists change.