Maral Muratbekova-Touron

This article arises from the work of the Basel Institute’s Public Governance team on informal governance. It was produced by research partners at the ESCP Business School (Paris) and the EDC Paris Business School (Courbevoie), France.

Abstract

In this article, we seek to understand whether and to what extent the sense of belonging to a powerful network affects individual decision-making in terms of ethicality with regard to a corrupt situation. We study the behaviour of insiders (individuals who belong to a power network, i.e. a network of individuals connected by interpersonal relationships to a person in a position of power) and outsiders in a corrupt versus non-corrupt environments using the theoretical frameworks of institutional logics and informal networks. Our hypotheses were tested with the help of a vignette-based experiment with 464 participants from countries considered as corrupt (Kazakhstan and Russia) and non-corrupt (UK and USA).

About this research

This research was funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the British Academy through the British Academy/DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence Program. However, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the British Academy or DFID.

For more information on the wider project and to download other country findings, see the Basel Institute’s Informal Governance website.

In this article, we propose to comprehend the corruption mechanisms of tender bidding processes in terms of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within informal networks.

Taking the context of Kazakhstan, we analyze the behavior of individual actors as members of informal networks. Our analysis shows that both corruption and anti-corruption mechanisms can be explained in terms of HRM practices such as (camouflaged) recruitment (e.g. of powerful government officials via network ties), compensation (e.g. kickbacks for corruption; social recognition or shame for anti-corruption) and performance management (e.g. demonstrative punishment for corruption; extreme formalization, peer pressure or  social sanctions for anti-corruption).

This report is part of a research project funded by the Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Programme of the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the British Academy.

This Kazakhstan country report is part of a research project funded by the Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Programme of the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the British Academy.

The project has identified informal practices in selected countries in order to establish their general and specific features in comparative analysis; assess their impact based on the functions they perform in their respective economies and indicate the extent to which they fuel corruption and stifle anticorruption policies.

The comparative research design involves seven countries from two geopolitical groups East Africa and Post-Soviet countries as follows:

• East Africa: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda
• Post-Soviet countries: Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia

The goal of the research is to produce evidence for the relevance of informality in support of the ‘localisation’ of anticorruption strategies and promoting the development of a new generation of policies that may harness the transformative potential of local patterns of informality.

See the research findings on the Basel Institute’s Informal Governance website.