Corruption and Culture: Empirical Analyses of Long-Term Indulgence and Corrupt Systems

This empirical study of 88 countries explored mathematical relationships between Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. When predicting corruption perception, an interaction occurred between Hofstede and Minkov’s (2010) two most recently published dimensions: Long-Term Orientation (LTO) and Indulgence Versus Restraint (IVR). Individually, each of these variables was a weak linear predictor. How- ever, an interaction of the two was found to explain 34% of variability in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The resulting compound variable significantly contributed to a three-variable model predicting nearly two-thirds of variability in the Corruption Perception Index. We concluded that extremes of neither long-term orientation nor indulgence were ideal for minimizing corruption. Implications include an improved understanding of relationships between culture and corruption. Further research is needed to more fully develop the most parsimonious and effective regression models.