A Review of Organizations’ Cultural Controls on Corrupt Behavior

This paper critically reviews existing studies on culture controls, one of the elements of Malmi and Brown’s (2008) management control systems (MCS) package, and explore its effects on mitigating employees’ corrupt behavior. Cultural control is considered a means to shape shared norms, beliefs, values, attitudes, and ways of behaving in an organization. This paper is organized around three forms of cultural control, namely the code of conduct, the tone from the top, and peers’ behavior of Malmi and Brown’s (2008) MCS package. The overall picture that emerges from this review is that much more can be learned about the effects of cultural controls on corrupt behavior. While theories and empirical studies abound around the effects of cultural controls on unethical behavior, empirical evidence on its effects on corrupt behavior is still limited. A conceptual model of cultural controls on corrupt behavior is proposed, and potential avenues for future research are also discussed.