Setting a Good Example? The Effect of Leader and Peer Behavior on Corruption among Indonesian Senior Civil Servants

• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Mala Sondang Silitonga,Rafael Wittek,Liesbet Heyse,Marijtje van Duijn
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13059
• Published date: 01 July 2019

565

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 4, pp. 565–579. © 2019 by The

American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13059.

Setting a Good Example? The Effect of Leader and Peer Behavior on Corruption among Indonesian Senior Civil Servants

Abstract: Standard anticorruption interventions consist of intensified monitoring and sanctioning. Rooted in

principal-agent theory, these interventions are based on the assumption that corrupt acts follow a rational cost-benefit

calculation by gain-seeking individuals. Given their mixed results, however, these interventions require closer scrutiny.

Building on goal-framing theory, the authors argue that rule compliance requires a salient normative goal frame,

since monitoring can never be perfect. Being inherently brittle, it needs constant reinforcement through external cues

operating alongside formal monitoring and sanctioning. Leaders and peers setting a good example can provide such

cues. In line with this hypothesis, analysis of multilevel repeated measures data from a vignette study of 580 Indonesian

senior civil servants shows that the perceived likelihood of a hypothetical civil servant accepting a bribe is lowest when

monitoring and sanctioning are strong and when leaders and peers are known to have refused bribes in the past.

Evidence for Practice

• Applying a goal-framing approach that acknowledges the importance of manifest norms provides a useful

means for studying corruption and for understanding the role of leaders and peers.

• A large vignette study showed that a good example set by peers, and especially by leaders, is a powerful

deterrent for civil servants to engage in corruption.

• The study confirmed the importance of strong monitoring and sanctioning as tools for corr uption prevention.

Mala Sondang Silitonga

National Institute of Public Administration Indonesia

Marijtje van Duijn

Liesbet Heyse

Rafael Wittek

University of Groningen

Setting a Good Example? The Effect of Leader

and Peer Behavior on Corruption among

Indonesian Senior Civil Servants

Rafael Wittek is professor of sociology

at the University of Groningen, the

Netherlands, and scientific director of the

transdisciplinary Sustainable Cooperation

(SCOOP) research and training program. His

research interests include organizational

and economic sociology, social network

analysis, and sociological theory. His recent

work has appeared in

Public Administration,

Public Administration and Development,

Journal of Public Administration Research

and Theory,

and

Social Networks

.

E-mail: r.p.m.wittek@rug.nl

Liesbet Heyse is assistant professor in

organization sociology at the University of

Groningen, the Netherlands. She studies

how public and nonprofit organizations

organize, collaboratively or individually, to

contribute to the common good. She applies

these questions—in close collaboration

with organizations involved—to specific

settings, such as Dutch municipalities and

nongovernmental organizations working

on the labor market integration of refugees

and in the youth care sector, using both

quantitative and qualitative methods.

E-mail: 1.heyse@rug.nl

Marijtje van Duijn is associate

professor of statistics at the University of

Groningen, the Netherlands. Her research

interests include social network analysis,

statistical modeling with a special interest

in random effects models for non-normal

data, and research ethics. Her work is often

motivated by empirical research questions

of collaborators in the Department of

Sociology, requiring novel applications of

statistical models and software.

E-mail: m.a.j.van.duijn@rug.nl

Mala Sondang Silitonga holds a doctoral

degree from the University of Groningen, the

Netherlands. She is currently working as head of

the division of academic and students affairs in

the School of Administration, National Institute

of Public Administration, Indonesia. She is

interested in corruption and its associated risks

and anticorruption policies in public bodies.

E-mail: malasondang@yahoo.com

Research Article

As part of the Indonesian government’s

reform efforts, since 1998, it has invested

substantially in measures to reduce corruption.

Many of these measures focus on intensifying formal

institutions, such as adopting anticorruption laws or

establishing and strengthening public organizations to

implement monitoring and sanctioning.

These attempts to control and detect corruption in

the Indonesian public sector reflect an economic view

of corruption, assuming that corrupt individuals are

goal-directed actors who maximize their personal

benefit through a rational choice calculation (de

Graaf 2007; Palmer 2008). Accordingly, as in many

other countries, anticorruption interventions consist

of intensified monitoring (increasing the expected

probability of detection) and increased severity

of punishment (increasing the expected costs of

corruption). For example, Presidential Regulation No.

87/2016 on the Eradication of Extortion or Illegal

Levies was enacted to punish and eradicate extortion

practices by public officials and to create a better

and more transparent public service system. Each

ministry, local government, and other government

agency in Indonesia has its own inspectorate that acts

as an internal control body that monitors whether

organizational rules are obeyed by everyone in the

bureaucracy. As part of external monitoring strategies,

particular state agencies monitor and investigate

alleged corruption and maladministration by public

officials. Examples of such agencies are the Corruption

Eradication Commission and the Indonesian Financial

Transaction Reporting and Analysis Center.

Despite these government initiatives, corruption is

still pervasive in Indonesia, not only among appointed

political leaders but also among senior civil servants

in both central and local government (Silitonga et al.

2016). For example, as a recent Indonesia Corruption

Report (GAN Business Anti-Corruption Portal 2017)

emphasizes, a corrupt judiciary, extensive bribery

in the public service, and the extortion of informal

payments to register businesses or obtain licenses

are still rampant and perceived not only to severely

harm the efficiency of business but also to undermine

property rights protections and weaken dispute

settlement processes. Martini (2012, 1) summarizes

the causes of the persistence and pervasiveness of

corrupt practices in Indonesia. They include “large

amounts of public resources derived from natural

resources, vested interests and politically connected

networks, poorly paid civil servants, low regulatory