Improving anti‐corruption agencies as organisations
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13590791211243101 |
| Pages | 255-273 |
| Published date | 13 July 2012 |
| Date | 13 July 2012 |
| Author | Alan Doig,David Norris |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Improving anti-corruption
agencies as organisations
Alan Doig
International Development Department, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, UK, and
David Norris
Teesside Business School, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK
Abstract
Purpose – Anti-corruption Agencies (ACAs) have been seen by donors and commentators as a
visible and discrete institutional response to a country’s commitment to anti-corruption work.
A number of reports have commented adversely on the general effectiveness and impact of ACAs in
practice. Much of the concern relates to the environment in which the ACA works, but over which they
have limited control, but often fails to address an ACA as an organisation something over which an
ACA does exercise much more control. The purpose of this article is to argue that there are common
organisational issues that face any new and small institutions in both public and private sectors, that
may assist an ACA’s development.
Design/methodology/approach – The article reviews the extensive literature to assess what
appear to be the key issues facing such organisations in the private sector usually termed small to
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – and discusses whether their experiences offer any applicability to
an ACA’s organisational strategy and development.
Findings – The article argues that a number of organisational issues are generic and ACAs, and
those who support and fund them, should draw on the lessons from the wider private sector
management and organisational development literature on SMEs for ACAs.
Practical implications – The article provides a framework for ACAs to consider organisational
reform and to guide donor support.
Originality/value – ACAs are rarely reviewed as an organisation. Indeed, much of the criticism
identified in this article points to this as a significant issue, for which private sector approaches may
provide guidance for organisational reform.
Keywords Corruption, Anti-corruption Agencies,Organizational development,
Small to medium-si zed enterprises
Paper type General review
1. Introduction
Anti-corruption agencies (ACA)[1] are seen as a visible and discrete institutional
response by governments to address corruption. The response can come from a number
of sources, such as donors, or the European Union as an accession requirement, or even
from a government itself to provide evidence of reform to its citizens, or of a means
to discredit its predecessors, or as a consequence of signing the United Nations
Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Invariably such a response tends to be elicited
from lesser democratising countries; ACAs are not a common feature of the institutional
anti-corruption landscape in developed countries[2]. Nevertheless, multilateral and
bilateral aid agencies continue to provide encouragement, support and resources for the
establishment of an ACA. Acceptance by the government to set up an ACA is often
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Improving
anti-corruption
agencies
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Journal of Financial Crime
Vol. 19 No. 3, 2012
pp. 255-273
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1359-0790
DOI 10.1108/13590791211243101
taken by aid agencies as proof of commitment to address pro-public developmental
progress and what is often a significant constraint on democratisation.
In practice the success or effectiveness of ACAs either as an organisation or in terms
of its contribution to improvements in the prevention or detection of corruption is
increasingly subject to criticism. The concerns include: the specific added-value of a
dedicated organisation, the location and resourcing of a new organisation within an
institutional anti-corruption landscape, the specific expertise available to the ACA, and
its ability to address different types of corruption, the roles of governments and donor
support, and so on.
As will be noted below, there are arguments as to whether ACAs and private sector
organisations can be compared but, as organisations, a number of the issues facing an
ACA relate to its newness, its size, and its internal approaches it chooses to adopt as it
seeks to define its roles and organise itself to deliver its functions. As a process such
issues are common across both the public and private sectors, and do relate to success
or performance in terms of what an organisation must do to deliver its intended or
stated functions as an organisation.
In the private sector, new and small companies must also address such issues as a
process and as an organisation. The enthusiasm for small to medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) in developed and developing economies has initiated significant research to
consider what common themes are associated with sustainability and success. The
article reviews and evaluates the research to identify common themes. The article then
considers the concerns over the apparent weaknesses of ACAs in becoming effective
organisations and thus achieve their intended functions. It assesses whether the
themes could improve, or be used as a basis to improve, the work of the ACAs and
facilitate their organisational processes development in ways that work more
efficiently and effectively toward delivering their functions.
2. SMEs: definition and characteristics
SMEs cover a wide range of products and services from agriculture to construction,
from local to international activities. Dependent upon the region of the world, their
defining feature has been their size; a common assessment of an SME would an
autonomous organisation with (for a medium enterprise) either have less than 250 staff
or a turnover of less than e50 million (European Commission, 2010).
The typical characteristics of SMEs have been connected to small scale, personality
and independence. Nooteboom (1994) writes that the high number of SMEs distributed
in different industries and different markets means that one of the most important
characteristics of small business is its diversity. Before an enterprise can take
advantage of an opportunity, it must be recognised. According to Shane (2000) people
recognise those opportunities related to the information and knowledge that they
already possess and further suggests that the recognition of opportunity is the starting
point to developing a business.
It can be argued that SME growth may be the result of strategic choices of
entrepreneurs(Hambrick and Mason,1984) or the structural characteristicsof the external
environment (Eisenhardtand Schoonhoven, 1990). However, Storey (2000) suggests that
for many business owners the growth of their business is not an objective, they are
targetingat survival. Morrison et al. (2003) summarisethat a key distinguishing feature of
a pro-growth small business is a balanced alignment of the owner-managers’ intention,
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