2020-01-012024-05-18https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/700231Corruption undermines the efficacy and legitimacy of governance and distorts the allocation of public resource. It is therefore important for the academia and the public sector to develop strategies and initiatives to combat corruption. Over the past few years, many governments worldwide have launched anti-corruption measures that involve three major phases: power anti-corruption, institutional anti-corruption, and social embeddedness anti-corruption. However, a significant body of studies in recent years shows that these anti-corruption measures have not been effective. In particular, the drivers and motives of corrupt behaviors among civil servants are poorly understood. As corruption is highly embedded in social context, corrupt behaviors are driven by a wide variety of factors, including those related to socio-cultural contexts. Against this backdrop, an interesting and puzzling question yet to be satisfactory answered is why the crucial target group—civil servants, as the major party guilty of corruption—engage in unethical and corrupt behaviors. Unlike conventional anti-corruption studies that examined macro-levels factors such as democratization, enterprise liberalization, and transparency, this study aims to provide a systematic framework for micro and meso-level factors—individual and organizational-institutional drivers—that contribute to bureaucratic corruptibility. This multi-year research study will focus on three main goals. First, it aims to explore and compare the design of civil service systems and anti-corruption measures in three Chinese societies—Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. Based on qualitative materials, it will examine the patterns and causes of corruption in the three societies and compare the anti-corruption measures they adopt. Second, this study aims to examine, based on empirical survey data, how emotional motives and motives for self-interest among civil servants in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China affect their tolerance for corruption and explore how socio-cultural context (e.g. guanxi and official-standard culture) and organizational climate (e.g. transparency) affect corruption among civil servants. Third, this study aims not only to shed light on anti-corruption governance in East Asian Chinese societies but also to outline feasible and effective approaches to combating corruption, thus contributing to anti-corruption studies by furnishing empirical data and incorporating theories from the field of comparative administration. In short, this study will employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine and compare anti-corruption measures and their efficacies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, thus shedding light on how institutional and socio-cultural context affect bureaucratic corruptibility. By bringing theories from comparative administration to anti-corruption studies, this study will yield theoretical and practical insights for the management of local-level civil servants and the formulation of anti-corruption measures.bureaucratic corruptibility, local-level civil servants, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, social embeddedness anti-corruption