University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2011 Organizations of corrupt individuals: a study of corruption in international cricket and the Catholic Church Michael Gross University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Gross, Michael, Organizations of corrupt individuals: a study of corruption in international cricket and the Catholic Church, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong, 2011. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3519 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: [email protected]. ORGANIZATIONS OF CORRUPT INDIVIDUALS: A STUDY OF CORRUPTION IN INTERNATIONAL CRICKET AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by MICHAEL GROSS, MBA SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING MARCH 2011 CERTIFICATION I, Michael Gross, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. Michael Gross 13 March 2011 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I express my sincere thanks to Dr Karin Garrety and Associate Professor Andrew Sense for their efforts, time and skills in supervising me throughout my PhD candidature. In particular, I am deeply indebted to Karin for her patience in supporting me during a long journey together. In addition, I wish to thank former colleagues Professors Robert Jones, Richard Badham and Warrick Funnell who assisted me with supervision at different stages. I also wish to acknowledge the contributions of Dr Michael Zanko, Dr Peter McLean, Associate Professor Rodney Clarke and other University of Wollongong colleagues who advised and encouraged me during my candidature. I especially thank my brother, Dr Paul Gross, for his interest and encouragement. In addition, my thanks extend all the authors whose publications I read in preparation of this thesis. My PhD thesis has been a journey rather than a project during which I have learned along the way, from my reading of their works, more than I have expressed in the thesis. I have passed to my students and colleagues some of what I have learned from them. Finally, I thank my family - my wife Sue, children Justin, Shari and Gia, and their families - for allowing me time away from our life together while I pursued my dream. It is my sincere hope that you feel some degree of accomplishment from your sacrifice. ii ABSTRACT Over the past decade, the general public has been shocked by revelations of widespread corruption and malfeasance in international cricket and the Catholic Church, two institutions that had hitherto been respected and trusted. Even more shocking, we now know that corruption had been happening in these institutions for decades, and that senior administrators had for much of this time known about it. This thesis seeks to understand how and why the corruption was allowed to develop and grow, despite being known about by these administrators and other institutional stakeholders. Using an interpretive, processual approach involving grounded theory methods, this textual study was conducted on documents related to match-fixing in international cricket and child sexual abuse by clergy in the U.S. Catholic Church during the late 20th century. The thesis advances understanding of the phenomenon known as the ‘organization of corrupt individuals’ (OCI) – where subordinate employees or members, rather than senior managers or administrators, are the primary perpetrators of the corruption. The thesis develops a theoretical model of the OCI phenomenon which suggests that a set of antecedent conditions influence the behaviour of perpetrators and organizational and institutional stakeholders over five stages of the phenomenon’s growth and decline. When perpetrators identify and begin to exploit opportunities to act corruptly, the response of stakeholders at each stage either enables or disables such corruption. The OCI progresses through stages of emergence, uncertainty and cover up which, if it eventually becomes unsustainable, results in a powerful intervention and scandal that damages the affected institution before efforts are made by key stakeholders to control the problem and restore its reputation. This model can be used by researchers and managers to understand the complex dynamics which embolden perpetrators to act corruptly and lead to organizational stakeholders, either unintentionally or intentionally, facilitating their corrupt behaviour. The thesis demonstrates the value of an interpretive, processual methodological approach when exploring the dynamics of corruption development and the benefits of integrating some important extant theories in the diverse fields of organizational iii corruption, deviance, ethical management and governance, man-made disasters and secrecy and silence. Furthermore, it demonstrates the important role that stakeholders play in enabling and disabling individual corruption in organizations. A significant outcome of this thesis is that it demonstrates that ethical management alone will not prevent OCI development in its early stages. To overcome this difficulty, the thesis argues that ethical research should be extended to examining prevention and mitigation strategies that governance bodies might use to identify and control potential forms of corruption by individuals in their organizations and institutions. iv PUBLICATIONS IN SUPPORT OF THIS THESIS Gross, M 2005a, ‘Nexus of Silence: A Grounded Theory of Organizational Behaviour behind the Cover-up of Deviance’, in Proceedings of the 19th ANZAM Conference, ANZAM, Canberra, 2005, Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, Australia, pp1-15. Gross, M 2005b, ‘Nexus of Silence: the Cover-up of Deviance in Organizations’, in Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies (APROS 11); Melbourne, 2005, Victoria University, Melbourne, pp1-12. Gross, M 2006, ‘Not Cricket: A nexus of silence over the cricket match-fixing scandal’, in J Kennedy & L Di Milia (eds) Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, Lindfield, pp1-22. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No Certification................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iii Publications in Support of this Thesis .......................................................................... v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1 1.1 The Problem of Defining Corruption…………………………………………...1 1.2 The Purpose and Original Contribution of this Study ........................................ 3 1.3 The Wider Significance of this Study ................................................................. 7 1.4 Theoretical Perspective and Research Strategy .................................................. 8 1.5 A Brief Overview of the Two Cases ................................................................ 11 1.6 Thesis Structure ................................................................................................ 19 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 22 2.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Corruption in Organizations ............................................................................. 23 2.2.1 Understandings of Corruption ............................................................ 23 2.2.2 Causes of Corruption .......................................................................... 25 2.2.3 Corruption Control ............................................................................. 29 2.3 Man-made Disasters ......................................................................................... 37 2.3.1 Cases of Emergent Problems .............................................................. 37 2.3.2 Patterns of Behaviour in Cases of Emergent Problems ...................... 40 2.3.3 Emergent Problems – Noticing and Sense-making ............................ 40 2.4 Secrecy and Silence in Organizations............................................................... 43 2.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 48 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 50 3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 50 3.2 Symbolic Interactionism ................................................................................... 51 i Page No 3.2.1 Pragmatism – the Foundation of Symbolic Interactionism ................ 51 3.2.2 Symbolic Interactionism as a Theoretical Perspective ....................... 52 3.3 Processual Analysis