How far are we from understanding corruption? The effect of cultural distance on corruption perception

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between cultural distances between countries and their scores in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which is the most commonly used measure of corruption in international business (IB) research. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied fixed-effect (generalized least squares) statistical modeling technique to analyze 1,580 year-country observations. Findings The authors found that the CPI score is determined to a large extent by cultural distances between countries, specifically the distance to the USA and to Denmark. Research limitations/implications CPI is often used as a sole measure of state-level corruption in IB research. The results show that the measure is significantly influenced by cultural differences and hence it should be applied with great caution, preferably augmented with other measures. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to look at cultural distances as determinants of CPI score. The authors empirically test whether the CPI is culturally biased.