Perceived Corruption in the Process of the Entrepreneurial Intention: An Extension into the Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour

Introduction

Since 2010, the social psychology of corruption has become a new field of academic growth. Many theories exist about the causes of corruption, ranging from economic models to cultural explanations. Despite this, the social-psychological reasons for corruption have received comparatively little research, especially at the individual level, as can be seen in a recent paper (Traditional theories of corruption frequently involve assumptions about motives that aren't always correct) (Heydari et al., 2020a,b; Xiaohu et al., 2020). It discovered the power of an alternative theoretical paradigm to describe corrupt behavior: based on TPB theory (Ajzen, 1991; Heydari et al., 2020c). The existing cognitive psychology literature on corruption found that the psychological impact of power, personal gain and loss and loss aversion, self-control, risk rationalization, acceptance, and emotion on the propensity to act corruptly. The previous research literature on the personal characteristics and motivations of corrupt actors has accumulated some data, and a growing number of empirical studies have investigated why an individual may engage in dishonest behavior, especially considering that an individual's tendency to corrupt may depend on the individual's moral identity and the surrounding environment (Ajzen, 1991). However, still do not understand much, such as the interrelation of cognition leading to corrupt action, motivation, volition, and emotion. As a result, this research examines these person-based drivers of human behavior in a particular situational environment, the business context.

In research titled “both sides of the coin: Corrupt motivations between business employees and public officials”,Gorsira et al. (2018) described the goal of their study as to better understand why business employees and public officials engage in corruption. They used a self-report questionnaire to collect data about personal-level descriptions of corruption. Their findings showed that the most important indicators of the tendency to engage (or not engage) in corruption are as follows: the ethical beliefs that prevent the person from corruption; perceptions of whether their employees approve of and engage in corruption; and the problems experienced in respecting the rules regarding corruption. The mechanism of these outcomes was identical for business colleagues and public governance and, consequently, both sides of corrupt activities. It was found that corruption in both public and private sectors and its active and passive forms originate from the same motives. There is not enough evidence providing robust support for the assumption that corruption can be essentially predicted by economic considerations, i.e., expected costs and advantages. Given the findings that the perceived opportunity and norms to comply with rules are prominent predictors of corruption, this study focuses on the practical implications of developing anti-corruption approaches within the private and public sectors.

Boehm & Lambsdorff (2009) identify several corruption practices as instances of corruption, containing embezzlement, extortion, bribery, nepotism, favoritism, fraud, and conspiracy between businesses to set prices surreptitiously or allocate market share. These illicit practices have logic, economic systems, and reality. Interactions among corrupted parties are buried in a “black box,” Most formal economic models ignore transaction costs arising from corrupt behaviors, the institutions involved, or their complexity. Instead, as a distribution issue, corruption is often minimized. There are also variances in the severity of corrupt activities and their monetary value. Low-level corruption, such as that of police personnel, is distinguished from high-level corruption, typically attributed to politicians and business leaders.

The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects, as stated by (Bolivar & Baressi, 1995), are in constant interaction and are periodic, i.e., they may be defined as both antecedents and consequences of acts since they affect the aspect, and hence individual ATT toward objects and circumstances.