Individual-level explanations of corruption within an intercollegiate context

Abstract

Understanding why individuals engage in sport corruption is an emerging topic of research. Micro-level accounts of corruption have generally used a single disciplinary approach toward understanding why actors commit corruption (e.g., doping and match-fixing) in specific sports. The purpose of this study was to first examine individual-level explanations of corruption in the context of intercollegiate athletics; and, second, to generate an interdisciplinary framework. A multi-case analysis was conducted of 20 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) major infractions (corruption) reports that occurred between 2005 and 2015. The findings showed that actors’ explanations were based on psychological factors—motivations (social relationship and self-interest) and personal norms, professional factors (abuse of power and failure of responsibilities), and justification factors (rationalizing strategies). This research builds on existing scholarship by generating an interdisciplinary framework of micro-level accounts of sport corruption in intercollegiate athletics.

A Scoping Review of the Causes and Consequences of Fraud in Sport

“…Namely, likely offenders are financially motivated (Carpenter, 2012;Doewes, 2020;Frenger et al, 2019;Gardiner et al, 2012;Huang et al, 2018;Trumpyte, 2016). Social ties, pressure, and duress (Carpenter, 2012;Gardiner et al, 2012;Kihl, 2019;Lee, 2017;, and conflicts of interests related to multi-club ownerships (Breuer, 2018) are also mentioned as contributing factors. Additionally, certain national contexts have been reported to possibly contribute to the presence of competition manipulation in these countries (e.g., Italy, Malta, Greece) (Aquilina & Chetcuti, 2014;Hamil et al, 2010;Manoli & Antonopoulos, 2015;Nowy & Breuer, 2017).…”

Moral disengagement and sport integrity: identifying and mitigating integrity breaches in sport management

“…Engelberg et al, 2015); and corruption (e.g. Kihl, 2019). Moral disengagement has been identified as 'an important prerequisite of harmful behavior, as opposed to being an outcome of it' (Boardley et al, 2020, p. 129).…”

“…Athletes socially justify violence and aggression to protect teammates and team reputation (Corrion et al, 2009), and college athletic directors use the same mechanism to justify payments to athletes in vulnerable positions (e.g. low socio-economic states, healthcare costs, travel costs) (Kihl, 2019). The key point here is that individuals think they are doing the right thing, and are thus able to justify these practices to themselves and others to avoid changing their behavior.…”

“…A focus on sport managers is advantageous for advancing sport integrity, as this group is ultimately responsible for developing integrity management strategies and delivering them throughout sport organizations and systems. The majority of sport ethics and integrity related literature in general, and moral disengagement literature in particular, is focused on sport participants, coaches, or consumers (Constandt et al, 2020;Kihl, 2019). This is not the case in general management, which increasingly investigates moral disengagement at work (Newman et al, 2020).…”