Dynamic assessment of corruption forms in an infrastructure procurement process : an international expert survey

Abstract

Following the protracted supposition regarding the proliferation of corrupt practices within the specific stages of the procurement process, this study intends to examine the dynamic criticality of corruption forms throughout the procurement process of infrastructure projects. The study also examines the vulnerability patterns of the key parties to the noted corruption forms. After establishing the measurement items from a structured literature review, an expert survey was conducted with sixty-five international professionals involved in infrastructure procurement process using a purposive sampling approach. Descriptive statistics such as the criticality index and the Mann-Whitney U Test Statistics analysis were employed to evaluate the dynamic criticality of the various corruption forms throughout the process as well as the contributions by the project parties. With bribery and collusive acts dominating the process, the results revealed that project parties in the developing world contribute more to the incidence of corruption as compared to those from the developed context. Moreover, the results revealed that public-participants (including government representatives) contribute immensely to the forms not only in comparison with the public parties from the developed sector but also the other project parties from the developing world. In the case of the developed context, contractors and sub-contractors are revealed to be the key parties to question followed by suppliers even though their respective criticality indexes are relatively lower. Theoretically, this study contributes to an extended understanding of the dynamism of corrupt practices and the parties behind the acts. Moreover, it contributes to the body of knowledge on corruption-related studies in the context of project procurement and management. Practically, this study is intended to inform project parties responsible for drafting contractual stipulations for a project, policymakers and anti-corruption institutions about the dynamics of corruption within the procurement process and how to develop strategic and holistic anti-corruption measures focused on extirpating specific forms at specific stages of the procurement process.