| Corruption has always been a persistent problem in the construction industry,in both developing and developed countries.Corruption not only negatively affects the schedule,cost and quality of construction projects,but also impedes the achievement of the socio-economic development goals that they embody.Although various governments and international organizations have paid great attention to the problem of corruption in construction projects and have taken many efforts,the results achieved have not been satisfactory.Scholars argue that the key to effective governance of corruption in construction projects is to clearly reveal the formation mechanism of corruption in construction projects.Unfortunately,there is still a lack of research in the field of project management to reveal the mechanism of corruption in construction projects.Therefore,the aim of this study is to analyze the multiple causal paths of corruption in construction projects from the perspective of corruption duality in the framework of "Incentives-opportunities",and reveals the complex mechanisms and the divergent paths of corruption in construction projects.Specifically,four aspects of the study were studied as follows.First of all,the institutional factors that influence corruption in existing studies are systematically reviewed under four dimensions: political,economic,legal,and sociocultural aspects,and the project characteristics factors influencing corruption in existing studies are also reviewed.The most relevant institutional and project characteristic factors for corruption in construction projects are identified using a feature selection algorithm based on graph features,considering that institutional factors and project characteristic factors are internally related,and different correlations between projects under different influencing factor dimensions.The results of the study demonstrate that political and economic institutional factors are most relevant to project corruption,with political institutional factors including accountability,party system institutionalization and neo-patrimonialism,and economic institutional factors including the business environment and market competition;the most relevant project characteristics to project corruption are project size,number of contractors and number of contracts.Secondly,from the perspective of the demand side of corruption in the project,based on the institutional factors most relevant to corruption in the project identified,this study develops a mechanism model of the impact of institutional factors on government official corruption.Specifically,the mediation model of the impact of party system institutionalization on government official corruption through accountability,the moderation model of the impact of neo-patrimonialism on the relationship between accountability and government official corruption,as well as the moderated mediation model of the impact of party system institutionalization on government official corruption,are developed by this study.Multiple regression and conditional process model are adopted for testing hypotheses.The results demonstrate that party system institutionalization has a negative effect on government official corruption and negatively influences government official corruption through the mediating role of accountability;neo-patrimonialism has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between accountability and government official corruption;and the indirect effect of party system institutionalization in influencing government official corruption through accountability is moderated by neo-patrimonialism.Thirdly,from the perspective of the supply side of corruption in the project,based on the most relevant institutional factors related to corruption in the project identified,this study develops a model of the impact of economic institutional factors on construction enterprise ’s corruption.This study takes the organizational isomorphism mechanism in institutional theory as a theoretical basis,and expands the business environment as business restrictions and normative bribery beliefs for corresponding to the coercive isomorphism and imitation isomorphism,and views market competition as competitive isomorphism.And then,this study develops a model of the impact of organizational isomorphism on the corruption of construction enterprises.At the meanwhile,the moderating effect of institutional capacity of construction enterprises on the above influence relationship is discussed to determine the boundaries of the role of organizational isomorphism on corruption of construction enterprises.Partial least squares structural equation model is used to test the relevant hypotheses.The results show that coercive isomorphism significantly and positively affects passive bribery,imitation isomorphism significantly and positively affects active and passive bribery,and competition isomorphism significantly and negatively affects passive bribery,and institutional capacity has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between coercive isomorphism and passive bribery.Finally,based on the research results in the above three sections,qualitative comparative analysis is employed to analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions for corruption in construction projects,and to identify the different antecedent configurations of corruption in construction projects,thereby revealing the mechanism of corruption in construction projects and the paths of divergence,considering both the institutional factors that influenced the demand and supply side incentives for corruption and the project characteristics that provided opportunities for corruption.The results show that neo-patrimonialism and accountability as institutional factors influencing the demand side of corruption in construction projects are the most important conditions leading to corruption in construction projects;business restrictions,competitive pressures and normative bribery beliefs are supporting conditions for corruption in construction projects,with competitive pressures and normative bribery beliefs playing a greater role than business restrictions;and there is a substitution effect between competitive pressures and normative bribery beliefs.Project characteristics are ancillary to the conditions under which corruption in a project occurs,and occur in conjunction with institutional conditions that affect both the demand and supply sides of corruption.Theoretically,this study complements the lack of research on the formation mechanisms of corruption in construction projects in the field of construction project management,expands the study of corruption in management from the individual,company,and country levels to the project level,and promotes the integration of the institutional analysis of corruption in management with the political dynamics of corruption in political science.In addition,this study also explains inconsistent research results with regard to the influence of organizational isomorphism on corruption behavior of enterprises and expands the application scope of organizational isomorphism from explanation on organizational similarity behavior to organization discrepancy behavior.In practice,this study helps project investors to evaluate and monitor the risk of corruption in construction projects,provides constructive advice to government officials aiming to control corruption,and provides guidance for the governance and prevention of bribery of construction enterprises. |
PDF Full Text Request