Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
9-2019
Abstract
Our paper draws attention to a neglected channel of corruption—the bribe payments by state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This is an important phenomenon as bribe payments by SOEs fruitlessly waste national resources, compromising public welfare and national prosperity. Using a large dataset of 30,249 firms from 50 countries, we show that, in general, SOEs are less likely to pay bribes for achieving organizational objectives owing to their political connectivity. However, in deteriorated institutional environments, SOEs may be subjected to potential managerial rent-seeking behaviors, which disproportionately increase SOE bribe propensity relative to privately owned enterprises. Specifically, our findings highlight the importance of fostering democracy and rule of law, reducing prevalence of corruption and shortening power distance in reducing the incidence of SOE bribery.
Keywords
Agency theory, bribery, institutions theory, managerial rent seeking, state-owned enterprises
Discipline
Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics
Publication
Journal of Business Ethics
Volume
159
First Page
221
Last Page
238
ISSN
0167-4544
Identifier
10.1007/s10551-017-3768-z
Publisher
Springer Verlag (Germany)
Citation
SHAHEER, Noman; YI, Jingtao; LI, Sali; and CHEN, Liang.
State-owned enterprises as bribe payers: The role of institutional environment. (2019). Journal of Business Ethics. 159, 221-238.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7235
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3768-z