A Study on Corruption

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Conceptual Framework

3. Review of Literature

4. Empirical Study and Generalization

5. Findings of Study and Generalization

6. Contribution to OB

7. Conclusion

8. Bibliography

9. Appendix

Introduction

A study on corruption involves the researcher in such a multitude of models, definitions and taxonomies that the deeper he or she delves into the literature on the subject, the less he finds himself able to generalize about it. There are but few commonalities between the multifarious views on corruption across the centuries but we find think Robert Klitgaard’s biting observation: that corruption is as old as organized human life, to be unquestionably true. From Kautilya bemoaning corruption in the Arthashastra to The Council of Areopagus that was instituted to investigate corruption in Athenian democracy, we can certainly conclude that corruption is a cross-systemic, cross-cultural and cross-temporal phenomenon.

For a variety of reasons, research interest in corruption has grown exponentially in the past two decades. For one, there is a near unanimous consensus among scholars that Corruption is actually detrimental to the growth of a nation. While this seems rather obvious today, it was a hotly contested proposition in the early seventies, where the Revisionist school had engendered a Machiavellian ( perhaps Kissenger-esque would be more topical) view of corruption- that it greases the wheels of progress and is unavoidable, perhaps even instrumental in the growth and development of a nation. After decades of definitional debates, however, this cynical view has been consigned to the rubbish-heap of history and corruption is almost unanimously looked upon as a blight.

Another reason for the enormous relevance of this issue is Globalization, which, for all its undoubted benefits, has enormously increased third world corruption at the macro level according to almost every credible study In India we lament the age of the License Raj but post 2G and Coalgate(etc ad infinitum) we’re not so sure any more. What seems to have happened with globalization is that while businesses in general do not face quite as many bureaucratic hurdles to start and run a business(like Indira Gandhi’s enormously high income tax) ,crony capitalism has become so rampant that small players, devoid of lobbying resources, simply can’t compete.

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