The Role of Integrated Governance Principles in the Fight Against Corruption: A Configurational Analysis

Zarghami S.A.

Al‐Fayez D., Hijal‐Moghrabi I., Yoon Y., Sabharwal M.

AbstractPromoting an ethical work environment in public‐sector organizations is crucial for good governance, particularly in developing countries that face internal and external pressures to modernize their public service and combat corruption. This study examined the mechanisms by which an ethical environment in public‐sector organizations is enhanced by investigating the role that employee public service motivation (PSM) as well as ethical leadership plays in the workplace. Utilizing first‐hand data collected in 2022 through a survey of public employees working at the Jordanian ministries and public sector agencies, the study showed that public employees in Jordan enjoy a high level of PSM, which was positively correlated with an ethical work environment. This relationship was, however, improved when mediated by ethical leadership, indicating the importance of ethical leadership as an organizational intervention to promote a more ethical workplace. The implications, contributions, and limitations of the study were further discussed.

Elliott I.C., Puppim de Oliveira J.A., Wu A.M.

AbstractSince 1949, the journal Public Administration and Development has gone through changes in name and scope, in author demographics and background, and in readership and the topics covered. The professional‐oriented articles in the first years of the journal have evolved to become more academic theory‐oriented articles in recent years. Drawing on mixed methods, the authors conducted in‐depth analyses using data from the journal to highlight changes in research themes and geographic foci. The study provides insights into the historical development of public administration in developing contexts, the journal's contributions to the field, and maps out potential future research trends.

Anić I., Kursan Milaković I., Hirogaki M.

Zarghami S.A.

AbstractThe academic literature has viewed drivers of corruption in isolation and, consequently, failed to examine their synergistic effect. Such an isolated view provides incomplete information, leads to a misleading conclusion, and causes great difficulty in curbing corruption. This paper conducts a systematic literature review to identify the drivers of corruption in the construction industry. Subsequently, it develops a system dynamics (SD) model by conceptualizing corruption as a complex system of interacting drivers. Building on stakeholder and open systems theories, the proposed SD model shows how the complex reinforcing relationship between authoritative, organizational, cultural, and financial drivers of corruption further increases corrupt practices. The new model also provides lessons that can be helpful in the development of policy frameworks to control corruption in the construction industry. To achieve success in the fight against corruption, the findings of this research suggest that (1) corruption must be understood at both the organizational and state levels, (2) anticorruption practices must be informed by ethically grounded stakeholder management strategies, and (3) anticorruption reforms must go hand-in-hand with strategies to tackle the economic downturn.

Zarghami S.A.

PurposeAvailable studies on anticorruption practices in the construction industry are exploratory with a very limited theoretical basis. This paper aims to provide a solid theoretical foundation to examine situational factors that influence the corruption intentions of individuals and organizations in the construction industry.Design/methodology/approachThis paper conducts a systematic literature review to synthesize construction management literature that suggests anticorruption practices. The identified practices are then examined using two theoretical frameworks: the fraud diamond theory and Lange’s corruption control framework.FindingsThe results of this research demonstrate how the four elements of the fraud diamond theory may trigger corrupt behavior in construction projects. The results also highlight conceptual distinctions among different means of corruption controls based on Lange’s corruption control framework. In addition, the findings of this research suggest that anticorruption practices should address (1) the incentives to act corruptly, (2) the normative means of corruption control, (3) the internal means of preventing corruption and (4) the shift in organizational culture.Originality/valueThis paper departs from prior research on corruption in construction projects by (1) identifying a large spectrum of anticorruption practices, (2) presenting a detailed theoretical interpretation of these practices and (3) viewing anticorruption practices as multidimensional constructs, which, in turn, leads to novel ways of examining these practices in construction projects.

Knox C., Orazgaliyev S.

AbstractThe Transforming the World 2030 agenda stresses the interconnectedness and indivisibility of sustainable development goals. This presents a major challenge for authoritarian states, specifically in implementing SDG16: promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing justice for all, and building effective and inclusive institutions. Existing research points to good governance as a sine qua non for implementing SDGs. Using Central Asia as a case study, we investigate the link between good governance and the implementation of SDGs in authoritarian states. We find variable but overall weak performance on governance indicators across Central Asia. If SDGs are indivisible, then autocracies are destined to fail the global sustainable development agenda because SDG16 challenges the type of regime in place. This is not to deny the SDG commitments made and some progress that has been achieved in these autocracies but rather to highlight that weak governance in autocratic states and those characteristics which define them are major impediments to long‐term sustainable development.

Villoria M.

In recent years, the study of corruption has become one of the most prominent in the social sciences. If there is corruption, however, it is because something has been corrupted; something pure has been sullied. This pure element serves mainly as a normative reference: It may never have constituted a social and political reality. However, the purpose of this article is to try to define what its components might be. In this way, theoretical considerations can be used to provide a more solid basis for the fight against corruption. The position of this paper is that the opposite of corruption should be explicitly defined without the use of abstract categories such as good governance or integrity. The paper will begin with a discussion of the concept of “non-corrupt government” and then proceed to a theoretical analysis of the main issues involved. It will conclude with some practical remarks on how to build, in the most parsimonious way, the benchmark of quality that corruption undermines. The contention is that a “non-corrupt government” is based on four principles: (1) equality (input side), (2) reasonableness (input side), (3) impartiality and professionalism of the administration (output side), and (4) accountability of the office (output side).

Zarghami S.A.

AbstractThe research on project schedule contingency suffers from three major shortcomings: (1) it only partly reflects the complexity arising from the high interdependencies among project activities; (2) it is predicated on the idea of closed systems and thus does not address the interaction between a project and its environment; and (3) it does not sufficiently inform industry practices. This paper addresses these gaps by conceptually and analytically linking von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice (CSP) to schedule contingency planning. It focuses on buffer management as a common approach to schedule contingency planning and accordingly develops a method to determine the size of time buffers based on the three foundational dimensions of open systems theory. Further, this research provides guidelines to explain how the simultaneous pursuit of the four stages of CSP can assist project managers and decision‐makers in responding to disruptive events.

Harrison J.S., Ho V.T., Bosse D.A., Crilly D.

Perera A.

Purpose This study aims to examine how different combinations of firm determinants enhance environmental reporting (ER) in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach This study collects data from annual and sustainability reports of 145 listed companies in New Zealand. This study uses content analysis to examine the extent of ER and then the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA) to determine the configurations of determinants of reporting. Findings The findings reveal ten configurations of determinants showing that ER relies on the existence or non-existence of other firm determinants such as firm size, profitability, ownership and presence of an environment committee (EC). Among ten configurations, ER*∼ROE (ROE denotes return on equity; firms with no profitability but with ECs) stands out, indicating that ER is strongly influenced by the presence of an EC when no profitability exists. Research limitations/implications The configuration analysis in this study extends the current ER literature. Practical implications The findings provide insight into the management to look for new paths when they make environmental-related strategies based on the existence and non-existence of firm determinants. The findings also support policymakers considering multiple combinations of criteria when mandating ER to promote better climate risk reporting in New Zealand. Originality/value Previous studies on determinants of ER mainly use regression analysis to analyse their data. In contrast, the current study uses configuration analysis.

Sofyani H., Yaya R., Saleh Z.

When Indonesian village governments were granted authority, independence, and decentralized budget from the central government through Village Law No. 6 of 2014, most people predicted that it would not promote better village development. Instead, such a policy would increase corruption cases and subsequently persuade people not to trust the village government. It might interfere with the legitimacy of the village government's autonomy. Insufficient institutionalization of good governance in the village was one of the reasons. Hence, this study aims to examine the association between transparency after village governance reform—as one of the good governance principles—and village community trust intervened by corruption perception of villagers. This study employed a survey method and involved 128 village governments in the Special Region of Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia, as the samples. The Partial Least Square technique was used for hypothesis testing. This study discovered that transparency was positively associated with low corruption perception and high village community trust. Moreover, corruption perception from villagers was negatively associated with community trust and had a role as a partial intervening variable.

Mishra S.S.

Wang Q., Zhang Y., Zhan H.

To understand different pathways leading to older adults' sense of home in residential care environments in China.This research adopted the qualitative comparative analysis method to analyse data from 29 interviews. Qualitative comparative analysis is an analytic strategy to systematically analyse potential causal pathways in small-to-medium-sized qualitative datasets.Findings uncovered four different pathways that older adults followed in their process of constructing a sense of home in residential care environments in China.This study adds to the body of literature by analysing how a sense of home in residential care environments can be achieved with pathways that contain a combination of sets of necessary, substitutive and absent conditions. It concludes that even though older adults may not live at home, they may achieve a sense of home by the joint effort at institutional, social and personal levels that facilitates older adults to find a sense of home.

Kanani-Moghadam V., Zarghami S.A.

There is a long history of examining exploitation and exploration capabilities as the key drivers of organizational learning, but the research that pursues the synergistic impact of various customer characteristics on these two capabilities of firms is yet to emerge. This article utilizes fuzzy set theory to develop a method that accounts for the combined effect of the three key characteristics of customers, namely customer involvement, customer sophistication, and customer geographical location on the exploration and exploitation capabilities of firms. Applying the proposed method to a sample of 86 Outsourcing Service Companies (OSCs) around the world, our findings highlight the disproportionate impact of customers' influence on the learning capabilities of four different types of OSCs: technology-based, engineering, knowledge-based, and business service firms. This empirical study makes a key contribution by way of developing a quantitative picture of the interplay between customer characteristics and the exploration and exploitation capabilities of OSCs, which in turn provides a measure of the extent to which interactions with customers enhance these two capabilities of firms. • An empirical study of the impact of customers on learning capabilities of firms • A diverse set of service firms around the world is studied • Fuzzy logic is employed to evaluate the combined effect of customers characteristics • The new method prioritizes customers based on their influence on learning capabilities