Creating Organizational Culture that Compact Corruption in Local Government: The Role of Municipal Leadership

Abstract

Corruption in U.S. local government is a phenomenon that boosted by the decentralization tendency. Most of the literature focus on reducing opportunity for corruption by monitoring and controlling the local governments’ transactions. However, opportunity reduction faces limited success in combating local governments’ corruption. This chapter highlights the need to focus on corruption rationalization. According to the Fraud Triangle Theory, committing a crime requires not only an opportunity but also a rationalization process that precedes or follows the crime. The rationalization is a defense mechanism that aims to normalize the crime and restore good self-image by claiming for instance that everybody practices the crime, the crime did not hurt anyone, or the crime was unavoidable etc. This chapter focuses on how corruption in local governments is normalized (rationalized). Particularly, the role of local governments’ leadership in creating and/or maintaining an organizational culture that rationalize corruption.