Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall into three major categories: (i) rational‐actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors' behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology.

Despite significant investment in anticorruption instruments in the past decades, confusion about their effectiveness remains. While a growing body of scholarship claims that anticorruption reforms have generally failed, other scholars have shown that particular anticorruption tools may actually work. A likely explanation for these puzzling outcomes is that public administration research holds a mistaken view of corruption, and improperly selected anticorruption strategies often target the wrong type of corruption. To overcome this problem, this article proposes a four‐cell typology of corruption, reflecting two critical dimensions along which most corrupt behaviors occur: the resource transfer and the primary beneficiary. Synthesizing recent research developments, this article introduces a new conceptualization of corruption that integrates perspectives from several disciplines. It also offers a series of propositions concerning how each corruption type could be fought. The article concludes with implications for research and practice.

This article concerns the extent to which corrupt behavior is dependent on the organizational power structure and the resources available for illegal exchange. This qualitative study is based on 42 in-depth interviews with organizational actors in different organizations in Hungary. Four core themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) isolated corruption at the bottom, (b) the middle level’s own corruption, (c) “technicization” when middle-level professionals and expert groups are used to legalize the corruption of the dominant coalition, and (d) “turning-off controls” when organizational elites intentionally deactivate internal and external controls to avoid detection.

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