What do Plato and the Bible tell us about bribery? Does it even matter? When it comes to ethical guidance on bribery should we look less to traditional wisdom and instead be seeking understanding and guidance primarily from modern sources? From economists with their talk of efficient markets, and from the critical theorists who focus on inequities in power relations? This book explores such questions in depth. Taking the form of a Platonic dialogue, the book contains a discussion of claims made for recognition of the positive aspects of bribery. This goes beyond the well-known "harmless" bribe - the facilitating or “grease” payment which encourages an official to speed up the performance of his or her existing duties, without additional favors. This type of baksheesh may be unattractive but it may be ethically acceptable on occasion, on the grounds of expediency. The discussion also covers the more controversial claim that some bribes are undeniably virtuous, owing to their positive consequences. An example of virtuous bribery is that made by Oskar Schindler to save lives in the Second World War. The book’s unique discussion format provides space for the comparison and differentiation of a plurality of ethical perspectives, and it reveals some surprising common ground between ostensibly irreconcilable ethical viewpoints. If a convincing case could be made for the acceptability of certain categories of bribery, the implications for public and institutional anti-bribery policies would be significant. In particular, the rationale for “zero tolerance” approaches might be threatened. Perhaps the ultimate public policy question raised in the text is how we might accommodate a fringe of virtuous and harmless bribery alongside a strict vigilance over the damaging effects of most bribes. By exploring this topic, this book will be of interest to public policy makers, anti-corruption professionals, and the general reader interested in counter-corruption practices.

Why has China grown so fast for so long despite vast corruption? In China's Gilded Age, Yuen Yuen Ang maintains that all corruption is harmful, but not all types of corruption hurt growth. Ang unbundles corruption into four varieties: petty theft, grand theft, speed money, and access money. While the first three types impede growth, access money - elite exchanges of power and profit - cuts both ways: it stimulates investment and growth but produces serious risks for the economy and political system. Since market opening, corruption in China has evolved toward access money. Using a range of data sources, the author explains the evolution of Chinese corruption, how it differs from the West and other developing countries, and how Xi's anti-corruption campaign could affect growth and governance. In this formidable yet accessible book, Ang challenges one-dimensional measures of corruption. By unbundling the problem and adopting a comparative-historical lens, she reveals that the rise of capitalism was not accompanied by the eradication of corruption, but rather by its evolution from thuggery and theft to access money. In doing so, she changes the way we think about corruption and capitalism, not only in China but around the world.

This book explores the offer and acceptance of bribes, as well as the control of bribery, through sciences of the mind.

It is common practice to assume that business practices are universally similar. Business and social attitudes to corruption, however, vary according to the wide variety of cultural norms across the countries of the world. International business involves complex, ethically challenging, and sometimes threatening, dilemmas that can involve political and personal agendas. Corruption in International Business presents a broad range of perspectives on how corruption can be defined; the responsibilities of those working for publicly traded companies to their shareholders; and the positive influences that corporations can have upon combating international corruption. The authors differentiate between public and private sector corruption and explore the implications of both, as well as methods for qualifying and quantifying corruption and the challenges facing policy makers, legal systems, corporations, and NGOs, as they seek to mitigate the effects of corruption and enable cultural and social change.

Corruption... How can policymakers and practitioners better comprehend the many forms and shapes that this socialpandemic takes? From the delivery of essential drugs, the reduction in teacher absenteeism, the containment of illegal logging, the construction of roads, the provision of water andelectricity, the international trade in oil and gas, the conduct of public budgeting and procurement, and the management of public revenues, corruption shows its many faces. 'The Many Faces of Corruption' attempts to bring greater clarity to the often murky manifestations of this virulent and debilitating social disease. It explores the use of prototype road maps to identify corruption vulnerabilities, suggests corresponding 'warning signals,' and proposes operationally useful remedial measures in each of several selected sectors and for a selected sampleof cross cutting public sector functions that are particularlyprone to corruption and that are critical to sector performance.Numerous technical experts have come together in this effort to develop an operationally useful approach to diagnosing and tackling corruption. 'The Many Faces of Corruption' is an invaluable reference for policymakers, practitioners, andresearchers engaged in the business of development.

With the advance of an increasingly globalized market, the opportunities for, and scale of, corruption is growing. The size of corporations and their wealth relative to nations provides the resources for corrupt practices. The liberalization of international financial markets makes transferring and hiding the proceeds of corruption easier. Moves towards privatization in East and West are providing once-only incentives for corruption on an unprecedented scale, as officials not only deal with the income of the state, but with its assets as well. In this book, Transparency International's (TI) world-renowned 'Corruption Perception Index' (CPI) and 'Bribery Perception Index' (BPI) are explained and examined by a group of experts. They set out to establish to what extent they are reliable measures of corruption and whether a series of surveys can measure changes in corruption and the effectiveness of anti-corruption strategies. The book contains a variety of expert contributions which deal with the complexity, difficulty and potential for measuring corruption as the key to developing effective strategies for combating it.

The problem of corruption is of central significance for the developmental prospects of poor countries. Corruption undermines development by siphoning off resources for infrastructures and public services and by weakening the legitimacy of the state. The volume will appeal to academics and policy-makers concerned with problems of governance and public management in developing countries, as well as specialists working on corruption and designing anti-corruption strategies.

"This textbook provides an innovative, internationally oriented approach to the teaching of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. Drawing on case studies involving companies and countries around the world, the textbook explores the social, ethical, and business dynamics underlying CSR in such areas as global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food production, free trade and fair trade, anti-sweatshop and living-wage movements, organic foods and textiles, ethical marketing practices and codes, corporate speech and lobbying, and social enterprise. The book is designed to encourage students and instructors to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices by stimulating a class debate based on each case study"--Provided by publisher.

This book provides a systematic analysis of how the understanding of corruption has evolved and pinpoints what constitutes corruption.

How can you be a well-known secret agent ? Why is the only voting method that isn t flawed a dictatorship ? How is it that Corruption is universally disapproved of, and yet universally practiced ? The world of dilemmas and paradoxes touch our lives on a regular basis. In The Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas, V. Raghunathan, the author of the best-seller Games Indians Play, shares the charms of some of the more interesting examples allowing us to delight in the excitement, mystery, confusion, exasperation and that occasional flash of clarity and enlightenment often experienced when the world of paradoxes and dilemmas hits our own. The book takes the reader through some of the fascinating illustrations, classical and well-known as well as the less common examples, in the field of management, finance and work life. Can two positives make a negative? Sample a charming little paradox discussed in the book the blackmail paradox. It is perfectly * if you gossip, reveal or threaten to reveal somebody's secret (unless of course you are bound by a non-disclosure agreement). It is also perfectly * to ask that somebody for some *. But if you undertake a combination of the two acts, each perfectly * by itself, with respect to somebody, well you are a criminal, a blackmailer Following the same easy, readable style of his previous best-seller, Games Indians Play, this new book should make absorbing reading and will certainly make you more curious about the world that surrounds us.