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Spiraling Down into Corruption: A Dynamic Analysis of the Social Identity Processes that Cause Corruption in Organizations to Grow

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Abstract

To date, theory and research on corruption in organizations have primarily focused on its static antecedents. This article focuses on the spread and growth of corruption in organizations. For this purpose, three downward organizational spirals are formulated: the spiral of divergent norms, the spiral of pressure, and the spiral of opportunity. Social Identity Theory is used to explain the mechanisms of each of these spirals. Our dynamic perspective contributes to a greater understanding of the development of corruption in organizations and opens up promising avenues for future research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business & Society Management, RSM Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, Room T07-01, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Niki A. den Nieuwenboer

  2. Business & Society Management, RSM Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, Room T07-04, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Muel Kaptein

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  1. Niki A. den Nieuwenboer
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Correspondence to Muel Kaptein.

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Niki A. den Nieuwenboer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Business & Society Management at RSM Erasmus University, The Netherlands. Her research interests include the growth and development of collective corruption in organizations. She holds a Master of Arts in Social Psychology from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Prior to starting her academic career, she worked as a consultant in business ethics and fraud prevention for KPMG Forensic in Brussels, Belgium.

Muel Kaptein is Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management at the Department of Business & Society Management at RSM Erasmus University, The Netherlands. His research interests include the management of ethics, the measurement of ethics, and the ethics of management. His␣research has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Business & Society, Corporate Governance, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Organization Studies, among others. He is the author of the books Ethics Management (Springer, 1998), The Balanced Company (Oxford University Press, 2002), and The Six Principles of Managing with Integrity (Articulate Press, 2005).He is also director at KPMG Integrity, which he co-founded in the Netherlands in 1995.

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den Nieuwenboer, N., Kaptein, M. Spiraling Down into Corruption: A Dynamic Analysis of the Social Identity Processes that Cause Corruption in Organizations to Grow. J Bus Ethics 83, 133–146 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9617-8

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