Managers’ Corruption Prevention Efforts in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: An Exploration of Determinants

Abstract

Based on an extension of the theory of planned behavior, this paper examines the determinants of managers’ corruption prevention efforts in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). For this, we collected survey data from 339 managers in German SMEs and conducted five supplementary in‐depth interviews. Our quantitative findings show that the SMEs’ managers’ moral obligation, subjective norm, self‐efficacy, perceived controllability, and perceived threat of employees’ corrupt behavior are positively related to managers’ intention to apply corruption prevention measures in their SME. This intention in turn is positively related to the application of such measures as is the managers’ perceived controllability. The supplementary qualitative analysis mostly supports these results. Based on our findings, we identify starting points to reach a higher sensitization of managers in SMEs to corruption prevention.