(John McCann/M&G)
Corruption is pervasive in South Africa. Worldwide, there are established measures that have been used to combat this vexing issue. Anti-corruption compliance programmes are one of these, and it has been legislated into South Africa’s recently amended Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. The Act now enjoins companies to show “adequate measures” to prevent being rendered complicit in corrupt activities by their employees.
But what makes a compliant employee, workforce or even a nation in a country where corruption is systemic?
Significant attention is aimed at ethics training, which teaches the values of being good and doing the right thing. Training provides the ethical values of fairness and honesty while showing how nepotism and conflicts of interest do not promote good behaviour. Integrity is driven through actions and actions are driven through behavioural change.
I recently attended a seminar where anti-corruption activists shared their perspectives on corrupt behaviour. The event was framed by new research on an emerging theory of anti-corruption unveiled by researcher Colette Ashton, a research scholar on corruption. Her work is compelling, persuasive and disruptive and calls for a rethink of established approaches to combating corruption. Ashton positions a multi-disciplinary approach to anti-corruption in her paper at the Institute for Security Studies.
Norms are formed through the unwritten conduct that a community develops over time and can take the form of social and cultural rules that individuals expect of each other in these settings.
Social rules also develop in workplaces and Ashton argues that these unwritten codes governing institutions play a role in driving workplace (mis)conduct when it involves corruption.
This adds new meaning to the concept of “groupthink”, where a person faced with a decision in a group prefers not to upset the dominant balance in that group. It can lead to unfortunate consequences such as not critically evaluating a position before reaching consensus. Could it be said that corrupt actions are a result of groupthink?
Ashton says employees are more likely to behave ethically if the environment facilitates it. Research findings, she says, have illustrated that the good governance approach, which recommends transparency and accountability, has not had much success in developing countries and the international consensus is that anti-corruption reforms “often fail in developing countries”.
Further, Ashton found that “theorists from developing countries claim that where there is systemic corruption, it is more helpful to focus on human behaviour and economic incentives to prevent corruption”.
What does this mean for initiating behavioural change in a workplace that is riven with corruption? Safe ways in which employees can buck the norm and shift the unwritten rules begin with establishing trust. To foster trust in institutions that have been ravaged by mistrust and deceit is not an easy task. Professional experience has shown that trust-building is a journey that involves a mindful reliance on each other’s perspective, coupled with tact, diplomacy and an acute awareness of the shared context informing the shift in norms. These skills are not easy but, when used correctly, can be highly effective. They are an art.
So, in saying this, it was prescient to enjoy a significant conversation with one of the panellists at this seminar. She is a dedicated public servant who, in her long career, had spent a stint at the Liquor Board. Her experience of how she had improved compliance in the burgeoning illegal liquor trade in townships teaches us some valuable lessons in shifting norms and establishing a culture where groupthink serves to promote non-compliance.
She narrated that the gogos, the primary caregivers of grandchildren, struggled to make their pensions extend for the month. They sold liquor illegally and scraped a living from it. But the stakes were high, and they were subjected to an illegal supply chain of liquor that was precarious, expensive and not sustainable. This official undertook educational home visits. She and her team artfully showed the gogos how licensing their illegal trade favoured them. They did this by teaching them on how to comply with the requirements for sourcing, storing and supplying liquor, how to sustain compliance and what the average cost of compliance would be.
It required a careful, mindful, curated conversation, framed in the context that ugogo found herself. It also involved a financial lesson on how to scale the business and, of course, a commitment to building a relationship of trust in an environment where trust in institutional authority is viewed with scepticism.
The results were remarkable. Financial security bought ugogo the means to higher education for her grandchildren, security of living and brought dignity to her household.
Ashton says there are two types of corruption: one of greed and one of need. A collective action approach to corruption, she says in her research, is: “Do not target individual bad apples using punishment. Rather, focus on society’s expectations about how people behave and try to change those norms.”
This story, simple and effective, has a twist in the tale. The official in charge of Liquor Compliance was a devout Muslim. Despite the strict prescripts of her religion forbidding liquor ,combined with her pressing cultural norms and doubtless social pressure, she saw the value in establishing compliance mechanisms in this sector, to meet the needs of the public and to foster dignity.
She, too, had to shift her norms. Isn’t that what it’s about?
Luthfia Kalla is an anti-corruption compliance lawyer and independent consultant. Her master’s is in applied ethics.