ETHICAL ISSUE OF BRIBERY 1

The Organizational Ethical Issue of Bribery

By:
ETHICAL ISSUE OF BRIBERY 2

Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................3
Organization’s Purpose...............................................................................................................................3
People in Organization...............................................................................................................................5
Organization’s Sustainability......................................................................................................................8
Staff Techniques........................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................12
ETHICAL ISSUE OF BRIBERY 3

The Organizational Ethical Issue of Bribery

Introduction

Bribery is an ethical issue prevalent in the public organization; nearly 6 out of 10 citizens

reported paying a bribe to access services at the organization. They usually pay bribes to

expedite the process of obtaining approvals, licenses, and permits, as well as gain access to

influential employees or secure favors in the organization. Despite compliance training and

comprehensive policy statements on corruption, bribery continues to thrive in the workplace,

resulting in escalations of cost to society, diminished productivity in the workplace, and

reputational damage. Addressing the ethical issue of bribery by strengthening compliance

practices, institutionalizing group discussions about ethics, and empowering employees to do

good things enhances ethics, brand value, and reputation.

Organization’s Purpose

As a public organization tasked with providing essential services and providing oversight

in various sectors to ensure compliance with legal frameworks, bribery erodes integrity. The

prevalence of bribery has fostered a workplace culture where decisions are made based on

favoritism or personal gain instead of public interest or merit. Diminished integrity undermines

the organization’s fundamental purpose of upholding the rule of law and serving the public good.

The public organization has priorities that guide its decision-making process and actions based

on available resources, political directives, and the society it serves. The occurrence of bribery

distorts these priorities and brings about decisions that favor the bribe instead of serving the

public’s broader interest. The distorted priorities often lead to unequal treatment of citizens,

ineffective policies, and misallocation of resources. The public organization has a duty to be

trustworthy and accountable for its decisions and actions. However, bribery erodes public trust
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since the citizens lose faith in the impartiality and fairness of government actions by perceiving

that public employees can be bought or influenced (Clausen & Kraay, 2019).

The public organization does not take social responsibility seriously. The organization is

focused on achieving its primary mission of implementing policies proposed by the political

leadership and ensuring citizens have access to essential services. Rather than incorporating

social responsibility efforts into the organization’s scope, the decision-makers encourage front-

line employees to focus on fulfilling core mandates. It is also worth noting that budgetary

constraints inhibit the organization’s ability to fulfill social responsibility. The organization is

required to operate within predefined budgetary allocations, and when priorities change, there

might be insufficient funds to finance core mandates. The political pressures that the

organization is subjected to also make it difficult for it to take social responsibility seriously.

Elected policymakers tend to prioritize economic initiatives that favor their constituents rather

than the whole social landscape. Unfortunately, failure to consider social responsibility leads to

erosion of trust among the public (Zhang & Kim, 2017). Neglecting social responsibility

increases the severity of social problems such as the widening gap between the wealthy and

the poor, low literacy levels, poor health outcomes, and destruction of the environment

(Girschik, 2020).

A more ethical purpose requires the organization to strengthen its ethics and compliance

practices using external standards. A notable standard is the ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery

Management Systems Standard, which targets global business and public leaders (ISO, 2024).

The standard outlines provisions for creating a culture that embraces ethical behavior and

setting up an anti-bribery compliance program that aligns with the organization’s risk profile. The

standard covers various forms of bribery, inbound and outbound, direct and indirect. However,

the standard does not address money laundering activities or anti-competition/trust offenses

(ISO, 2024). The provisions of the external standards are a viable deterrent against bribery
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activities within public organizations. Front-line employees will be aware of the severe legal

ramifications, such as imprisonment and fines, which discourage them from accepting bribes

and ensure the organization performs its purpose. The provisions that prohibit bribery guarantee

a level playing field for all employees, regardless of their influence or rank. For instance, senior

leaders must make decisions based on merit rather than their authority. Accordingly, the public

organization will be able to achieve its purpose of serving the citizenry fairly and equally.

People in Organization

Dishonesty in the workplace, due to the prevalence of bribery, is a major problem for

employee morale. Bribery creates an unjust workplace culture where people gain opportunities

or rewards based on dishonest practices instead of hard work. Economists posit that people

focus on maximizing utility, which is mainly influenced by evidence-based calculations of their

self-interest (Oliveira-Castro & Foxall, 2017). In other words, people care significantly about the

outcomes and the processes they use to achieve these outcomes. A fair process that produces

an outcome enhances employees’ behaviors and attitudes critical to high performance (Oliveira-

Castro & Foxall, 2017). A sense of unfairness leads to demoralization and resentment among

employees, which translates to poor organizational performance. Moreover, employees within

the organization mistrust themselves because of the prevalence of bribery. Employees become

skeptical of their colleagues’ actions, believing what they are doing is not honest. Trusting a

colleague in the workplace implies being confident that they will follow through with their

assigned roles and responsibilities. However, when employees perceive the presence of bribery

activities associated with their assigned tasks, they develop unspoken annoyance to employees

whom they consider to be receiving bribes. A workspace environment where employees hold

their trust back affects productivity and organizational performance (Bjørnskov & Méon, 2015).

Bribery has a significant negative effect on career advancement. Given the presence of

bribery in the organization, it is evident advancements in career leadership are not based on
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performance or skills. Rather, employees who can bribe senior employees are highly likely to

advance their careers. Highly skilled professionals who qualify for career advancements might

lose trust in the promotion process. They lose trust because they perceive bribery as a major

determinant of who is promoted. Highly skilled employees become disillusioned with the whole

promotion process. The lack of growth opportunities is a major contributor to high turnover

rates. A 2023 survey by the American Psychology Association revealed that 91% of employees

would prefer careers that consistently offer opportunities to advance careers; however, 47% of

employees say their organizations offer pathways for career development and would consider

quitting their positions (DeCarbo, 2023). Lack of opportunities to advance careers is linked with

workplace stress. Estimates suggest that the US economy loses nearly $500 million because of

workplace stress as a result of the loss of 550 million workdays each year. More than 80% of

doctor visits by employees are due to stress, and around 60-80% of workplace accidents are

due to stress (APA, 2014). Stressed employees are vulnerable to health problems ranging from

cardiovascular disease to metabolic syndrome and death.

Ethical treatment of employees requires the public organization to institutionalize group

discussions about ethics. Decision-makers at the organization should make ethics an explicit

part of group discussions. During these discussions, group members should explore questions

such as: Did the process used to achieve the outcome done in the right way? Did some of our

employees’ actions cross any ethical lines? And were there parties harmed by unethical

practices? Brainstorming on these questions helps employees assess their current practices

and decisions. Group discussions can be useful in contexts involving ethical dilemmas. In some

cases, a public employee might find themselves receiving bribes from a citizen seeking

preferential treatment in fastening the passport application process to visit an overseas country

for emergency treatment. The employees may face dilemmas when asked to balance the

legitimate but competing interests of citizens. When faced with ethical dilemmas that might hurt
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organizational productivity and trust, group discussions offer an opportunity for others to share

insights on how and why they reached certain decisions (Smith & Kouchaki, 2021).

Organization’s Metrics Profit

As a public company, financials are important. CEOs of many public agencies endorse

the idea of shareholder value analysis, whereby they examine how decisions made affect the

organization’s economic value (Sinha, 2016). They are aware of the tenets of modern finance

theory, which suggest that an organization’s economic value is the right tool for assessing

performance, given that it reflects the time value of money and operational risks and provides a

standard for balancing profit and loss and balance sheet tradeoffs (Simkowitz, 2012). The

organization’s decision-makers in the finance department are convinced that the economic

value determines the firm’s stock price in case its shares are offered to the public. In case of the

likelihood of takeover activity or the government’s decision to privatize the company, the

economic value of the company should be kept as high as possible to prove the leadership’s

capacity to manage the organization’s assets effectively. The financials are also a useful part of

the management process. Financial results offer a financial framework whereby decision-

makers become aware of the departments that are profit centers and which are cost centers

(Vithayathil & Choudhary, 2022).

The ethical issue of bribery inhibits the organization’s ability to serve just enough to

make maximum profits. The inability to serve effectively is due to a culture of silence whereby it

appears there is no whistleblower system or integrity hotline that works since bribery remains

prevalent without any internal stakeholder reporting to an independent anti-corruption

organization. Despite silence being associated with various virtues such as decorum, prudence,

respect for others, and modernity, in the workplace, it hurts employees’ ability to serve clients

because of the perception that being silent is the best way to further careers and hold on to their

jobs (Perlow & Williams, 2003). The need to be quiet despite the prevalence of the ethical issue
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of bribery is amplified by today’s harsh economic conditions, where millions of people have lost

jobs and many are struggling to find well-paying jobs. Many people who express their concerns

publicly or go against their organization’s implicit culture are harshly punished. If they are not

made to feel irrelevant, they are marginalized or are fired. The culture of silence in the wake of

the prevalence of bribery presents a significant psychological burden on employees, generating

feelings of resentment, anger, and humiliation. In the end, employees are unlikely to produce

the best service needed to generate profitability, as they experience low motivation levels

(Perlow & Williams, 2003).

More ethical metrics can be achieved by empowering employees to do good things and

focus on serving others. Research suggests that serving people can raise awareness about

moral issues and reduce self-focus (Everett & Skorburg, 2020). For instance, institutions of

higher learning provide students with internship opportunities where they can learn service

styles and gain practical skills on how they can positively impact the world. An empirical

analysis of internships reveals that students’ ability to gain valuable practical skills had a

spillover effect on moral character (Stekelenburg & Smerecnik, 2023). Instead of being worried

about breaking the silence code that hides the bribery culture at the organization, employees

should pursue opportunities to serve. For instance, they could engage in corporate voluntarism

whereby they provide their services to the public without expectation of payment or rewards.

Corporate voluntarism can enhance the reputation of the organization, empowering employees

to serve just enough to make maximum profits.

Organization’s Sustainability

The organization has a role in helping the country deal with the damaging effects of

climate change in order to limit pollution and ensure global warming is below 1.5 degrees

Celsius. However, bribery influences public officials working for the organization to ignore

environmental regulations. A law enforcement agent based in the organization might accept
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payment in exchange for not reporting a violation of environmental regulation or reduce the

mandated sanction for violating environmental legal frameworks. Academic evidence suggests

that bribery affects a public organization’s ecological sustainability because of the inability to

enforce environmental regulations tasked with enforcing (Sundström, 2013). Bribery hampers

enforcement of the law, allowing emitters to evade the responsibility of pollution and encourage

the overexploitation of resources (Damania & Sterner, 2020). Since bribery is distributed to the

most powerful decision-makers up the hierarchy of the organization, it creates incentives within

the hierarchy to allocate law enforcement resources to activities that maximize the chances of

collecting bribes. It is less likely that public officers will target illegal activities when there are

fewer opportunities for payments. As such, public officials target bribery from businesses that

emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, as there are greater opportunities for payment.

Bribery at the organization degenerates the natural systems it affects. Corrupt acts

overall with environmental crimes such as illegal logging, illegal trade of wildlife products,

dumping of hazardous waste, overfishing, and unauthorized mining, among others, all of which

degenerate natural systems (Damania & Sterner, 2020). There have been instances where

public officials at the organization have been bribed to offer hunting licenses, fisheries quotas,

and timber concessions. As a result, the officials indirectly contribute to the loss of biodiversity

by hunting endangered species and destroying biodiversity. Their actions reduce the resiliency

of ecosystems, increasing their vulnerability to collapse. Additionally, bribery acts at the

organizations often result in inaccurate environmental impact study outcomes. The goal of

environmental impact assessments is to identify evidence-based strategies for dealing with the

negative effects of a proposed project or activity on the project. The inaccurate environmental

impact study fails to identify potential environmental risks of the proposed activity or project. The

approval of activities or projects based on inaccurate impact studies presents significant

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negative effects on ecosystems. Inaccurate impact assessment reports present ineffective

mitigation measures that do not detail evidence-based safeguards that protect the environment.

A more ecological stance requires the organization to enhance transparency in decision-

making processes and bureaucratic procedures to reduce the likelihood of bureaucrats

manipulating regulations and rules for their personal interests. The organization should publicly

avail laws and regulations so that employees can know and understand the environmental

regulations. Publicly availing of the laws would reduce the likelihood for employees to extort the

public due to poor mastery of the law by citizens. Working with watchdog groups can also be

helpful in ensuring employees enforce environmental regulations and are accountable for their

actions. Bribery that occurs in enforcement practices such as policing and inspections can be

resolved by increasing the pay for officials who conduct inspections. There should be a special

fund for offering incentives for conducting inspections. Streamlining is also an important aspect

of preventing bribery in any process related to enforcing environmental regulations. Simplifying

or streamlining make procedures straightforward and clear, reducing the number of direct

interactions between citizens and officials, and reducing bureaucratic silos to enhance

transparency in processes (USAID, 2018).

Staff Techniques

The main priority of leadership in implementing the recommendations is to engage the

right people with diverse perspectives. The recommendations require an innovative mindset and

a rationale as to why there is a need for people of different areas of expertise, backgrounds, and

disciplines to share their thinking. In some cases, a problem’s complexity requires diversity. For

instance, it took a team of computer scientists, neuroscientists, medical doctors, and

mathematicians at Brown University to come up with a system in which a monkey could

manipulate a computer cursor with only its thoughts (Vedantam, 2020). Within the context of

implementing recommendations linked with the ethical issue of bribery at the organization,
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leadership has a duty to assemble a diverse team of employees that can enhance creativity.

The leadership can enhance diversity by looking outside the organization to tap ideas from all

ranks. After assembling a diverse team, the leadership must model collaborative behavior.

Executives at the organization should be good role models when it comes to collaboration. The

way the executives collaborate should be visible to the team so that team members can emulate

collaborative behaviors and incorporate them when implementing the decisions. Research,

especially those that apply the leader-member exchange theoretical framework, suggests that

leadership actions usually trickle down throughout the organization (Balwant & Singh, 2023);

hence, demonstrating how to collaborate in teams can be an effective teaching tool.

Moreover, bureaucracy can be a helpful tool in implementing the recommendations.

Critics of bureaucracy argue that it is characterized by administrative hurdles and strict project

timelines, which inhibit the workers’ ability to perform meaningful tasks. The recommendations

require complex technical work; for example, enhancing transparency in decision-making

processes is complex as it involves protecting sensitive information, resistance to change,

taking part in meaningful engagement with stakeholders, and incorporating technology to

disseminate and process information effectively. These recommendations that involve complex

technical aspects must be coordinated and tracked across departments. Costs must be kept in

line, and budgets must be accounted for, which is a rationale for why managers will be heavily

relied upon. Managers often have a desire to maintain control over important tasks, and the

bureaucracy provides them an opportunity to absorb much of the burden of dealing with

complex recommendations.

Furthermore, rewards are critical in the pursuit of recommendations for a more ethical

purpose, more ethical treatment of people, more ethical metrics, and a more ethical ecological

stance. So, the rewards system must be consistent with the recommendations. In 2010, a

multinational Asian company conducted an experiment to assess if rewards can encourage

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employees to share better ideas. The company created an internal system where people could

submit suggestions. The results of the experiment revealed that when employees receive

financial rewards, they are highly likely to submit better strategic insights and contribute towards

achieving strategic objectives (Gibbs et al., 2014). In this view, offering rewards would

encourage employees to focus on the provisions of every recommendation and implement them

on their own. Also, rewards that offer spot bonuses- a financial incentive or reward offered for

achievement on a particular project or milestone- will enhance employee satisfaction and

increase their self-efficacy to implement the recommendations. Researchers acknowledge that

the expectations of monetary rewards activate the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain’s

reward circuit (Carter & MacInnes, 2019). Since the goal is to incorporate the recommendations

in the organization’s strategic direction, then the organization should consider engaging the

employees’ reward circuitry.

Conclusion

Addressing the ethical issue of bribery by strengthening its ethics and compliance

practices, institutionalizing group discussions, and empowering employees to do good things

enhances ethics, brand value, and reputation. The prevalence of bribery at the organization has

fostered a workplace culture where decisions are made based on favoritism or personal gain

instead of public interest or merit. Dishonesty in the workplace, due to the prevalence of bribery,

is a major problem for employee morale. When employees perceive the presence of bribery

activities associated with their assigned tasks, they develop unspoken annoyance to employees

they consider to be receiving bribes. The ethical issue of bribery inhibits the organization’s

ability to serve just enough to make maximum profits. Acts of corruption influence public officials

working for the organization to ignore environmental regulations.

ETHICAL ISSUE OF BRIBERY 13

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