Oriol Miralbell's_research

Unfortunately, we cannot say that we don’t know what corruption is or that in our country or city, we don’t know any recent crime commited by corrupted people. We can imagine that it is because today crimes are more easily publicized and reported than in the past, but, we also can believe that this kind of economy where we livie in, is a better framework where unscrupulous people can make much money using illegal means that can be easily hidden to the public eyes, and that what we get to know is only a minimum part of the real corruption that is hitting our society.

Criminals do seldom work alone. There are always groups. that in form of social networks, are giving support and taking advantage from their crimes. Social networks do not only function for good means, but also for bad ones.

In mids of this globalized world, there exist many people that can easily get tempted to delinquish. The amount of legal rules that are functioning in our countries is high and we do not always know them, though, many “smart” experts know how to break them, and they know,who to convince or tempt to act in name of others.

I could go further and talk about how criminal organizations have extremely complex networks of complices and how these networks often reach very important people, often politicians, who should refuse to take part in such illegal actions. This is how people think that corruption works. My interest on this issue was stronger after some scandal that this week has been on the title page of the newspaper of Barcelona and affects one of the most prestigious cultural institution of the city: the Palau de la Musica.

There is an interesting study published last july (Jamie D. Collins, Klaus Uhlenbruck, Peter Rodriguez. (2009) Why Firms Engage in Corruption: A Top Management Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics 87:1, 89-108) where the authors conclude that there is a strong relation between corrupted firms and their relations to the administration.

Social relationships exert their influence on firms
through the actions of managers and others within
the firm (Adler and Kwon, 2002; Scott, 1995).
Through a history of interaction, individuals develop
personal relationships with others, which Nahapiet
and Ghoshal (1998, p. 244) describe as an individual’s
‘‘personal embeddedness.’’ One’s personal
embeddedness within a family, organization, or
other relationships creates identification with the
group that leads to shared norms, develops trust, and
creates the expectation or obligation to support
others in the group (Coleman, 1990; Uzzi, 1997).

The relation between individuals (nodes) and the “personal embeddednes” within the firm and the group of these firms determines strongly the compromise of individuals with the firm’s principles, or culture. In the case of small societies, firms can, thus, gain a relatively tacit tolerance with corruption and this can easily spread a culture of corruption. Collins et al. state in their paper:

The social context in which crime
takes place shapes attitudes as well as propensities
toward criminal behavior (Canter and Alison, 2000;
Maguire et al., 1997). Social relationships shape our
views of what constitutes appropriate behavior,
including our view of the duties and obligations
inherent to social relationships (Greenwald and
Banaji, 1995). Indeed, our frameworks of comprehension
are formed by our social environments,
including one’s family, membership in organizations,
etc (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Blau, 1964;
Levine and White, 1961).

Networked corruption is an interesting field for research where criminal departments should work on, and that should also be taken in account when designing rules to scanction- and policies to prevent corruption.