sustainability Article Nepotism and Related Threats to Security and Sustainability of the Country: The Case of Lithuanian Organizations Svajone Bekesiene *, Audrone Petrauskaite and Rolanda Kazlauskaite Markeliene General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania, Silo 5a, 10322 Vilnius, Lithuania; [email protected] (A.P.); [email protected] (R.K.M.) * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +370-68-648-000 Abstract: The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of nepotism as a form of corruption on the effectiveness of organizations, determining the relationship between the manager and employees, employee relations, and taking it into account as a potential threat to secure and sustainable develop- ment of the organization and society. The data collected from private and public organizations were used to test research hypotheses. The AMOS version 26 program and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to check the models with median effects. The results of the test allowed to identify the negative aspects of nepotism in the relationship between the manager’s behavior and organizational performance. Nepotism causes internal conflicts and an atmosphere of mistrust in both public and private organizations, which leads to poor company performance and quality of services provided, and the potential loss of professionals. The results of the research show that the problem of nepotism is still relevant in Lithuanian society. The research results allow envisaging both systematic and ideological measures to prevent corruption in Lithuania. Models for the prevention of this form of corruption can be constructed on the basis of this research. Citation: Bekesiene, S.; Petrauskaite, Keywords: nepotism; corruption; public organizations; sustainable development; national secu- A.; Kazlauskaite Markeliene, R. rity; SEM Nepotism and Related Threats to Security and Sustainability of the Country: The Case of Lithuanian Organizations. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1. Introduction 1536. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su13031536 As provided for in the National Security Strategy of the Republic of Lithuania, the prevalence of corruption in the public sector, economy, and business of the country may Academic Editor: Gabriela Topa undermine the legitimate interests of individuals and the state, compromise the rule of Received: 8 December 2020 law, reduce citizens’ faith in the values of democracy and in democratic government Accepted: 22 January 2021 institutions, and reduce the attractiveness of the state to foreign investors [1]. Contempo- Published: 1 February 2021 rary research shows that corruption has very different forms, such as nepotism, bribery, embezzlement, influence peddling, abuse of power, and manifests itself in both private Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral businesses and public sector organizations as well as in political organizations and public with regard to jurisdictional claims in administrations [2–9]. published maps and institutional affil- For a long time, the Western world has been of the opinion that various forms of iations. corruption are characteristic of the third world and developing countries or that corruption is the product of over-regulated countries without the free market [10]. In fact, research shows that in developed countries, selection for job vacancies is made on the basis of the candidate’s education, merits, qualifications, work experience, while in developing Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. countries family members and relatives rather than competent individuals are likely to be Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. employed, and therefore their performance is not as good as it should be [2,4,11]. This article is an open access article Corruption scandals in the last decades of the 20th century and the early 21st century distributed under the terms and in the free market countries contradict this opinion and confirm the assumption that conditions of the Creative Commons nepotism, like other forms of corruption, flourishes in any political regime [12], and that Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// corruption is the major negative factor in any country, whether we speak about economic creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ growth, legitimacy of the government, or the overall security of people [13]. 4.0/). Sustainability 2021, 13, 1536. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031536 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2021, 13, 1536 2 of 22 Forms of corruption such as favoritism, nepotism, and cronyism are complex and diffuse phenomena, making them very difficult to define scientifically as well as to assess from a societal perspective. Nepotism, both in the scientific literature and in public opinion, is understood as the abuse of a person’s position, power, or influence in order to confer a privilege on his/her relatives [2]. Nepotism is particularly evident in organizational activities, when a person is hired or promoted not on the basis of professional competencies, work experience, but on the basis of kinship. A concept closely related to nepotism is cronyism, which also means the patronage in a professional career that is based simply on close relationships (i.e., schoolmate or friend, common social or political activities, and the like) [3]. According to scientific point of view, nepotism and cronyism are two separate forms of favoritism. Favoritism is probably the broadest concept that describes patronage that is not based on professional or business interests, but on personal relationships or personal interests [4]. It should be noted that there is no strict separation of these terms in both the scientific literature and society, and they are often used together as synonyms or as consonantly related phenomena [2–4,8]. Such an interpretation of all three terms is very obvious in the case of Lithuania. In Lithuania, there is no legal definition of nepotism, cronyism, and favoritism yet, and therefore forms of corruption can be considered only as an abuse of a person’s official position. Nepotism is an expression of both favoritism and cronyism, in both Lithuanian scientific literature and society [14–27]. Thus, the concept of such forms of corruption must be analyzed and defined in scientific, legal, political, and social terms in the future. More precise definitions of nepotism, cronyism, and favoritism will help to directly assess these forms of corruption both in Lithuania and in other countries, as cultural and social differences lead to different assessments of these phenomena. What is attributed to nepotism or cronyism in Western democracies can be seen in Islamic cultures as a moral duty to help your friends and family members. In developing countries, such as India, the processes of democratization of public–political life have en- hanced civil powers for those layers of society that are not able to take part in the governing of the country, and then nepotism becomes a means of strengthening the bureaucratic and thus political powers of these people [15]. In such cases, as Akhil Gupta argued, corruption becomes the narrative of the fulfilment of expectations and needs of ordinary citizens [13]. Research in the public sector shows that manifestations of nepotism are visible not only at regional and national levels, but also at a cross-border level. When creating EU institutions, for example, it was expected that a new stratum of supranational civil servants would form, but the proliferation of nepotism created a new cross-border elite, which, from the sociological point of view, is transforming from a “class as such” to a “class for its own sake.” Europe is at risk that this new elite will grow into a European “nomenclature” with significantly greater private gain and public money misuse opportunities [14]. On the basis of research and scientific analysis, it may therefore be argued that nepo- tism is a negative phenomenon in any culture, both morally and politically, especially where it manifests in the public sector or in the political life of the state, as it undermines the principles of the legitimacy of the government and public representation [18]. Corrup- tion among civil servants not only causes serious economic damage to society through inefficient use of the material and financial resources of the state, but also undermines democratic processes and the civil society by encouraging mistrust in public authorities and reducing the resilience of the society to internal and external threats. It should be noted that some researchers maintain that nepotism, favoritism, and cronyism are automatically neutral phenomena that cause a conflict of interests only under certain conditions and then give rise to the risk of corruption [11–28]. In their studies researchers confirm that the manifestation of nepotism and other forms of corruption is significant both in the public sector and in private business, but they disagree regarding the reasons that lead to the emergence and prevalence of nepotism in or- ganizations [22–30]. In the opinion of most researchers’ nepotism encourages various other forms of corruption, and its consequences are particularly damaging not only to the organi- Sustainability 2021, 13, 1536 3 of 22 zation, but also to the society at large, democracy, the legal system, and the security of the public and the state. Nepotism, cronyism, and other forms of corruption therefore become a critical area that must be researched with the aim of looking for the ways to change the prevalent narratives [31]. Institutional reforms and the requirement of greater transparency