Mulgan, Richard; Wanna, John --- "Developing Cultures of Integrity in the Public and Private Sectors" [2011] ELECD 1009; in Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell (eds), "Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption

Editor(s): Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849805018

Section: Chapter 22

Section Title: Developing Cultures of Integrity in the Public and Private Sectors

Author(s): Mulgan, Richard; Wanna, John

Number of pages: 13

Extract:

22 Developing cultures of integrity in the
public and private sectors
Richard Mulgan and John Wanna


Anti-corruption strategies place considerable emphasis on the impor-
tance of developing appropriate cultures which encourage integrity in
those entrusted with positions of responsibility (and more broadly within
the wider community). Integrity cultures, in this sense, may be broadly
understood as the set of endorsed social understandings, behaviours and
practices that affect how people think and act. Cultures are commonly dis-
tinguished from the formal organizational structures, such as institutions
and legal rules. While such institutions and rules provide the background
context and can help to frame social action, it is the living-breathing
culture that determines how they operate in practice and how people act
in the many situations not covered by formal rules. Accordingly, while the
quality of legal regulation is certainly an important factor in affecting the
extent of malfeasance or corruption, research has repeatedly shown that
underlying cultural values and informal expectations among the actors
involved are equally, if not more, influential (Dobel, 2005; Heintzman,
2006). For this reason, much of the emphasis in building ethical environ-
ments and in combating corruption has moved from legal enforcement of
ethical rules towards trying to change cultural attitudes in the direction of
greater support for integrity and greater intolerance of corrupt behaviour.
The contrast and interplay between culture and legal enforcement in
anti-corruption strategies reflects more general philosophical tensions
between two approaches to professional ethics in both the private and
public ...