J Bus Ethics (2013) 116:139149
DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1451-y
Rationalizing Ideologies, Social Identities and Corruption Among
Civil Servants in Indonesia During the Suharto Era
Adang Budiman Amanda Roan Victor J. Callan
Received: 21 September 2011 / Accepted: 10 August 2012 / Published online: 29 August 2012
 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract This study investigated how the social identi-
ties assumed by individuals as part of their professional
roles influence the nature and use of a range of rational-
izations for their corruption or the corrupt acts of others.
Thirty senior Indonesian public servants were interviewed
about the causes and factors that perpetuated corruption
during the Suharto era, and how they rationalized corrupt
behavior within the role of being a civil servant. Findings
revealed that corruption was routine and embedded in the
daily activities and administrative structures of Indonesian
public servants. Rationalizing ideologies that supported
corruption included a denial of responsibility, social
weighting and an appeal to higher loyalties. Central to
these rationalizations were explanations around the low
levels of civil service salaries, poor accountability, and
corrupt leadership at senior levels of the government.
However, the expression of these rationalizations varied
across three social or role identities of the Indonesian civil
servant: the professional civil servant, the collegial civil
servant, and the corrupt civil servant. The implications of
these findings for interventions in organizations in devel-
oping countries are discussed.
Keywords Corruption
Civil service reform

Rationalization
Role identity
Developing countries
A. Budiman
A. Roan (&)
V. J. Callan
UQ Business School, University of Queensland, St Lucia,
QLD 4072, Australia
e-mail: a.roan@business.uq.edu.au
A. Budiman
e-mail: adang69@hotmail.com
V. J. Callan
e-mail: v.callan@business.uq.edu.au
Introduction
Corruption is the misuse of authority for personal, subunit
or organizational gain (Beugre 2010; Anand et al. 2004). In
particular, this misuse of authority continues in many of the
worlds developing countries that face high levels of cor-
ruption by politicians, the military, police, and those in
business. This study in a developing country adopts an
individual or more organizational behavior perspective to
propose that corrupt acts become institutionalized in situa-
tionally defined role identities that strongly influence and
motivate corrupt behaviors, including rationalizations for
these corrupt acts. The research provides a test of the
applicability of rationalizations for corruption identified in
a western context (i.e., Ashforth and Anand 2003) to a
developing context, and more significantly examines the
interplay between civil service role identities and the use of
these rationalizations for corruption.
The analysis of why there is continued corruption in
developing countries is not new and has occurred on several
fronts. At the core of each approach is that a better under-
standing of the conditions and justifications for corrupt acts
will promote more effective strategies to reduce corruption.
The socio-historical approach cites in particular the influ-
ences of economic development and underdevelopment in
developing countries (Theobald 1990; Pellegrini 2011), and
the legacy of colonialism (Randall and Theobald 1998;
Hoogvelt 2001). A focus upon more structural causes for
corruption has investigated the low levels of salary of civil
servants (Akerlof and Yellen 1990; Earle et al. 2010), a lack
of transparency and accountability, and the inefficient use of
human resources (Goodpaster 2002; Brown 2006; Choi
2009). In a newer approach, the individual perspective (den
Nieuwenboer and Kaptein 2008; Misangyi et al. 2008;
Alatas et al. 2009; Beugre 2010) has examined how
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Table 1 Rationalizing ideologies (Based on Ashforth and Anand 2003)

Description Examples from the data

Legality
Denial of responsibility
Denial of injury
Denial of victim
Social weighting
Appeal to higher loyalties
Metaphor of the ledger
Refocusing attention
The actors excuse corrupt practices on the grounds that Some expression in the data
they are not illegal
The actors engaged in corrupt behaviors perceive that Strong expression in the data particularly around
they have no other choice than to participate in such the low level of salary
activities
The actors are convinced that no one is harmed by their Some expression in the data mostly around the
actions; hence the actions are not really corrupt complexities of the red tape and aid projects
The actors counter any blame for their actions by Little expression in the data
arguing that the violated party deserved whatever
happened
The actors assume practices that moderate the salience Strong expression in the data particularly in
of corrupt behaviors through condemning the relation to corruption at senior levels
condemner and selective social comparison
The actors argue that their violation of norms is due to Strong expression in the data
their attempt to realize a higher-order value. The most
common higher cause appears to be group loyalty
The actors rationalize that they are entitled to indulge in Strong expression in the data
deviant behaviors because of their accrued credits
(time and effort) in their jobs
Relates to dirty-work occupations. Shifts attention away Little expression in these data
from stigmatized features

corruption becomes embedded in organizations through
mutually reinforcing processes that underlie its ultimate
normalization. In particular, Ashforth and Anand (2003)
propose that supporting corrupt acts are rationalizing ide-
ologies that negate negative interpretations by explaining
why the specific acts of corruption are justifiable or excus-
able exceptions to the general normative rules. However, the
influences of these rationalizing strategies have yet to be
tested beyond western contexts in order to understand what
is universal and what is more context-specific. In addition,
other factors might influence these rationalizations for cor-
ruption including the types of groups that individuals belong
to and choose to identify with.
The context for this examination of corruption is the
Indonesian civil service during the Suharto era (19671998).
Among scholars of corruption, this time in Indonesia is
acknowledged as one where corruption flourished in many
public sector institutions at all levels of government, facil-
itated by a period of weak administrative structures and a
general lack of enforcement of accountability processes
(Imbaruddin 1997; Kingsbury 2004; Suryadinata 1998).
The Normalization of Corrupt Behavior
If we are to make more robust statements about the uni-
versality of the causes for corruption, whether at the indi-
vidual or organizational levels, a wide range of contexts
needs to be investigated to identify what is universal and
what is more context-specific. In particular, compared to
the number of studies in western contexts, very few studies
in more developing countries have examined the individual
motives for corruption in any great depth. Where studies
have occurred, explanations have reported upon a narrow
set of factors that include rent-seeking behaviors or self-
interest (see Rose-Ackerman 1999; Bhargava and Bolon-
gaita 2004). Studies reveal that corruption is a complicated
undertaking as interpretations of corruption and corrupt
acts vary by region, local values, and beliefs (Khan 1998;
Kristiansen and Ramil 2006). Indeed, cultural practices and
values often mean that some practices are acceptable in
some countries, but not acceptable in others (Tanzi 1998).
As Rose-Ackerman (1999, p. 5) states one persons bribe
is another persons gift.
Towards a more comprehensive understanding of the
wider range of factors at work in promoting and main-
taining corruption, Ashforth and Anand (2003) propose
that individuals engage in a process of rationalization
where self-serving ideologies are developed to justify
corruption. These rationalizations explain why otherwise
law abiding and committed employees engage in corrup-
tion. Rationalizations can be invoked prospectively before
the act, and retrospectively after the act, and they vary in
their strength in relation to the unethical deed (Zyglido-
poulos et al. 2009). Ashforth and Anand (2003) in their
preliminary model identify eight types of rationalizing
ideologies used in various combinations that allow indi-
viduals to distance themselves from the aberrant moral
position implied by their corrupt actions (see Table 1).
Using this framework, as a first step the current study

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Rationalizations and Social Identities for Corruption
investigated how civil servants used these rationalizing
ideologies to justify their corruption or the corruption of
others.
The Facilitating or Hindering Roles of Social Identities
The current research extends the understanding of corrup-
tion through a special focus upon the social identities
associated with the professional role of being a public
servant in Indonesia. As some (e.g., Rose-Ackerman 1999)
have previously argued, the acceptance of a more profes-
sional public service identity is one mechanism for
reducing the incidents of corruption worldwide. Social
identity is an individuals self-concept based upon their
perceived membership of one or more social groups (Ab-
rams and Hogg 1990), and individuals in organizations can
hold multiple social identities linked to their membership
of a professional role, work group, or discipline. Propo-
nents of social identity theory (Hogg and Abrams 1988)
propose that through self-categorization there is an accen-
tuation of the perceived similarities between the self and
other ingroup members, and an accentuation of perceived
differences between the self and identified outgroups. If
self-esteem is to be maintained, ones ingroup (e.g., pro-
fessional role) needs to compare favorably with outgroups,
and in the case of corruption, corrupt acts by ingroup
members might be expected to be motivated by more
positive types of rationalizations than acts by outgroups.
Identity research is beginning to be applied to explaining
corrupt behavior in organizations (see Ashforth et al. 2008;
Trevino et al. 2008), including how professional role
identities frame engagement in and reactions to corrupt
behavior (den Nieuwenboer and Kaptein 2008; Grube and
Piliavin 2000). Among the many explanations emerging is
that de-personalization and adoption of group prototypes
promote corrupt behavior in organizations because indi-
viduals have a desire to adopt what is prototypical of val-
ued groups both in terms of behaviors and norms (Ashforth
and Anand 2003; Misangyi et al. 2008). In adopting the
groups prototype, and therefore adopting the prototypical
norms and behaviors of the group, group members become
depersonalized and negate their own personal identity (den
Nieuwenboer and Kaptein 2008).
Some argue that the use of such processes does not occur
without some stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. According to
Alvesson (Alvesson 2004; Sveningsson and Alvesson
2003), identity work is a constant struggle as identities are
open to review and change. Conscious identity work is
associated with self-doubt, typically due to the many
inconsistencies individuals face as a result of challenges to
their identity around their behaviors or in explaining the
behaviors of others who are members of their social group or
141
category. Ashforth and Anand (2003) also recognize this
tension and ambivalence in their framework. The clash of
normative systems around a desire to both justify and to
renounce corrupt behavior in these different systems creates
feelings of doubt and ambivalence.
The current study explores the use of rationalizing ide-
ologies and how they might have operated to assist public
servants to justify their corrupt acts and those by others.
During this political era we explore the existence of dif-
ferent role identities associated with being a professional
public servant in Indonesia, ranging from the non-corrupt
civil servant to other identities associated with various
levels of corruption. The study examines the interplay
between rationalizing ideologies and civil servant role
identities, and how civil servants in Indonesia at the time
utilized rationalizations to justify their corrupt behavior
and the corrupt behavior of others. In summary, three
research questions were addressed:
Q1. How are rationalizations used by public servants in
this developing country to justify their corrupt
behavior and the corrupt behavior of others?
Q2. What are the social identities of civil servants around
corrupt behaviors?
Q3. How do these social identities facilitate or hinder the
use of rationalizations about corruption in develop-
ing countries?
Method
The Research Context
Before the end of the Suharto era, as with many developing
countries, Indonesia was known for its underdeveloped
institutions of government and a complex and over-
expanded bureaucracy (Theobald 1990; King 2000).
Numerous factors contributed to the complexity of
administrative systems and structures in Indonesia includ-
ing a system of administration inherited from the Dutch
and the Japanese colonialists. This system included cen-
tralization of policy development and control, problems
associated with lingering colonial attitudes and mind-sets,
and problems in managing inflows of foreign aid and for-
eign investment which often provided the source for
funding corruption (King 2000; Brown 2006; Dwiputrianti
and Lan 2011; Kristiansen and Ramil 2006). All of these
factors are implicated in contributing to the existence and
continuance of corruption (Brown 2006; Theobald 1990).
Corruption in the public sector bureaucracy during the
Suharto placed Indonesia as one of the worlds most cor-
rupt countries, while Indonesia was judged at this time to
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142
have one of the poorest corporate governance standards in
the Asian region (Hill 2000; King 2000).
Historically, the low level of salary of civil servants is
recognized as a central issue in driving continued corrup-
tion in Indonesia (Filmer and Lindauer 2001; Hill 2000).
Indonesias civil service salary system consisted of a pri-
mary salary, additional incentives (Tunjangan perbaikan
penghasilan atau Kesejahteraan pegawai), structural or
functional incentives (Tunjangan jabatan struktural atau
fungsional), and 10 kg of rice for single employees or
30 kg for married employees each month. Salary was based
on a strict hierarchical ranking system. It was common for
a civil servant to have one or more part-time jobs, also
known as nyambi. Many took unrelated second and third
jobs such as running a small shop (warung), being a
motorcycle driver (ngojek) or doing any other kind of
work, known as ngobyek, as long as it was legal (halal),
particularly in the eyes of the Islamic religious law
(Kompas 1998). Despite these financial issues, the pro-
fession of civil servant was a highly valued social identity,
and identifying as a person with a civil service job afforded
a person social status, represented security in employment
and income, and often included access to health care and
other benefits (Macfarling 1996; King 2000; Kristiansen
and Ramil 2006).
Sample and Procedure
The research involved semi-structured in-depth interviews
with 30 individuals who included 19 active and five retired
civil servants, and six others expert in the field of public
administration. In addition, two focus groups of seven were
completed, as well as three group discussions each with
3035 participants. The techniques used for the selection of
the interviewees were a combination of purposive and
snowball sampling. Letters requesting volunteers for par-
ticipation were sent through the local and provincial gov-
ernments of the region.
Individual participants were interviewed more than once
where possible (i.e., 19 of the 30 interviews) to gain a fuller
understanding of the interviewees perspective. All inter-
views were tape-recorded, transcribed, and translated from
Indonesian to English. The historical or retrospective
approach used in the interviews promoted a good degree of
openness and provided further protection for the research
participants. In the tradition of oral history, the interviews
were designed to elicit personal responses to a range of
events in the civil servants professional career (see Haynes
2010), while in the tradition of the phenomenological
interview the researcher aimed to obtain accounts of the
lived-experiences of the participants (Alvesson and
Skoldberg 2007). The research received ethical approval
from our University and approval from the Office of the
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A. Budiman et al.
Governor in the region. To maintain confidentiality, a
minimum amount of information is provided in this paper
about the region, and the participants roles in the civil
service.
Interviews covered a variety of factors which impacted
on the performance of public sector institutions during this
period, with corruption being an important point of dis-
cussion. In the conduct of the interviews, corruption was
understood within the Indonesian context as any criminal
act or pidana committed by state staff and government
officials involving the abuse of power and authority in the
performance of duties and responsibilities (UU-Otonomi-
Daerah 1999, p. 146). Law Number 22/1999 of the
Regional Government Constitution of Indonesia details
states that corruption is usually closely associated with
collusion and nepotism, and it is most commonly known as
Korupsi, Kolusi dan Nepotisme. Interviews were con-
ducted in 20012002, only a few years after the resignation
of President Suharto on 21st May, 1998. Although this
meant that participants were able to give relatively fresh
accounts of the later Suharto period, the older and retired
civil servants were encouraged to give accounts of the
entire period.
The average duration for an interview was between 1
and 2 h. All interviews were completed by the first author
who had considerable experience in the Indonesian public
sector as an employee. Data were analyzed by theme using
Pattons (2002) core meanings identification approach.
Data were first analyzed under the themes of causes of
corruption, explanations for corruption, and corrupt prac-
tices. The first and second authors then independently
classified explanations of corruption under Ashforth and
Anands (2003) rationalizing ideologies and later cross
checked their classifications (see Table 1). All authors then
undertook an iterative process examining the transcriptions
for descriptions of corrupt and non-corrupt behaviors and
how these were rationalized against the role of a civil
servant.
There were several processes of refinement (Glaser and
Strauss 1967) in an attempt to find an appropriate description
for a role identity between the rejection of corrupt practices
and engagement in corruption (see Table 2). We recognize
that persons can identify with multiple roles; however, cat-
egorization was necessary to aid discussion beyond the usual
dichotomy applied to the analysis of corrupt practices. We
also recognize that faced with discrepancies in their
behaviors, individual interviewees may engage in self-
deception and scapegoating (Brown and Jones 2000), and
impression management tactics (Goffman 1959; Morrison
and Bies 1991). These processes also help maintain self-
image and self-concept (Hogg and Abrams 1988). However,
these processes are also congruent with the processes of
rationalization (Ashforth and Anand 2003).
Rationalizations and Social Identities for Corruption
Table 2 Social identities and associated rationalizations
Role Description
identities
Professional Focused on their professional
non- responsibilities, doing their job and
corrupt proud to be a member of the Indonesian
civil civil service
servant
Collegial Focused on their professional
civil responsibilities but used the system on
servant occasions to achieve organizational
goals, to assist employees or family
Corrupt civil Completed their professional
servant responsibilities but frequently sought
personal gain
Results
Rationalizing Ideologies
A summary of the findings around the use of each ratio-
nalization are provided in Table 1. Many respondents
believed that the underdeveloped systems of governance at
the time allowed corrupt practices on the grounds that they
were not actually perceived to be illegal (i.e., the legality
rationalization; see Table 1). There was an interpretation of
laws and regulations that legitimized corrupt behavior,
especially around how the use of red tape enabled civil
servants to generate extra charges. For example, as a senior
public servant stated:
So these extra administrative procedures became for-
malized. As long as you paid the extra payment that we
all accepted, you got a drivers license quicker.
Another described this process as:
Something that I called twisting around something
from not being permitted to being permitted and from
not allowed to being allowed.
At the organizational level, those interviewed were in
little doubt that this was legitimized by official government
sources at the time, thus allowing for blurred interpreta-
tions of legality. Leaders in particular strongly influenced
what behaviors were considered to be legal and prototyp-
ical. As one respondent stated:
The government knew. Suharto knew that there was
considerable corruption and nepotism within public
sector bureaucracy. All of the state ministers knew.
Corruption and nepotism in Indonesia were insepa-
rable from day-to-day life.
143
Example quotes Rationalizing ideologies commonly used
Personally I did not think about my low Predominately denial of responsibility
salary. Rather I loved my job as a civil and social weighting
servant, was proud of my role and I
wanted to do the best job possible
Because our local government revenue Predominately denial of responsibility,
was small, we switched some activities appeals to higher loyalties and social
to become project activities to benefit weighting
the revenue of the whole unit
A lot of what they did was not to meet Strong use of metaphor of the ledger by
their basic needs. They were motivated individuals who believed that they were
by greed and the need to live in luxury entitled to indulge in corrupt behaviors
due to their accrued credits (seniority,
status, effort) in their jobs
The denial of responsibility was a dominant rationaliza-
tion (see Table 1). Many individuals reported that they had
no choice due to circumstances beyond their control. For
individual civil servants, the need to generate extra income
was perceived to be a very rational reason to engage in some
form of corrupt behavior. It was often depicted in the
interviews as the only course of action due to the low level of
civil service salary, as illustrated by the following quotes.
Realistically, for a senior employee like me, if we
lived based on my basic salary, no incentives, no
teaching, and not having a wife who is employed as a
civil servant, my family would not have survived.
I think that corruption was normal because the salary
of civil servants was just not enough.
People committed corruption to meet their basic
needs. It was acceptable. If they didnt do corruption,
well, it was impossible to live on.
The collection of these payments was enabled by the
complex salary system of base payments, incentives and
systems of accounts in which project and other funds were
directed. Also some reflected on the large gap in salary
levels which existed between top and bottom layers of civil
servants. The system of salary in Indonesia was not seen to
be realistic, with too large a gap between the basic salary
and the salary for higher ranking employees. In turn, many
reported that lower level public servants who had consid-
erable responsibilities were insufficiently paid in their
view. Others, however, discussed at length a tipping point
around salary between actions that were justifiable cor-
ruption and those that were simply about personal greed.
The most worrying to us is that some turn their
behavior from normal to being over the acceptable
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limits. An employee is supposed to be able to live the
way they should simply, but some become a greedy
person and a lot of what they did was not to meet
their basic needs. One person like this would be far
more dangerous than one thousand people who
commit small-scale corruption, those who only do it
to overcome their daily needs.
The following quote further illustrates this sense of
ambivalence experienced by a senior public servant who
ultimately yielded to corrupt acts in order to produce a
result of higher moral value (i.e., appeal to higher loyalties
rationalizations). He stated:
To help and to overcome problems for civil servants,
although small, we also had to become involved in
this corruption. But my feeling as a civil servant is
that it was wrong. We knew that the salary was small.
Then, one of my staff had a child fall sick or pass
away or her husband was hospitalized in Jakarta. She
had no money to support herself. Well, for the sake of
human compassion, I had to assign her to do an
official trip to Jakarta, although she didnt have any
work to do there. In the administration system, this
was not allowed. But, we allowed it.
There was a frequent use of the social weighting ratio-
nalization around condemning of the condemners in the
comments of some public servants (see Table 1). Signifi-
cantly, the majority of those interviewed expressed their
strong condemnation and a lack of tolerance for high-level
civil servants being involved in corruption. Many argued
that continued corruption occurred because of the poor
leadership of these senior officials, their lack of emphasis on
being a professional civil servant, and the rampant corrup-
tion by leadership at the highest levels of government.
Some senior civil servants interviewed expressed the
metaphor of the ledger rationalization where monies earned
through corruption offset hard work that went unrewarded
or other perceived injustices (see Table 1). In focus group
one, participants reported that many civil servants were
often well trained, educated and highly capable. However,
during the Suharto era many civil service departments were
over staffed with a rigid system of seniority known as
echelonering which meant few had opportunities to
advance their careers and salaries. They felt a sense of
injustice in not being able to apply their knowledge and
training. Another focus group participant reported that his
job description was vague and often contained insufficient
duties to occupy the day. This, combined with low salary,
lead to him taking part in corruption.
There was very little evidence of the use of the ratio-
nalizations of the denial of injury or the identification of
victims of corruption by these civil servants. In this form of
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A. Budiman et al.
rationalization, individuals or groups deserve their fate due
to their previous behaviors. One explanation is that external
funding sources such as foreign aid were often involved at
the core of the corruption. The province in which the
research was located was the recipient of foreign aid funds,
and much of the discussion about corruption centered on
aid projects funded from external sources such as the
World Bank. Funds were channeled through the central
government to the local/provincial government through a
system of projects, and while projects had accountability
mechanisms attached to their funding agreements, there
was collusion with other public servants and with private
business around these documents. For example, letters for
work-orders were routinely written for more than the actual
amount.
Multiple rationalizations were apparent in explaining
how aid project funds were designed in ways that allowed
money to be easily diverted for personal or organizational
uses. Manipulation of project budgets created extra posi-
tions through which additional income was regularly
obtained through permanent arrangements known as wet
positions. Persons who occupied these positions would
stay in them, forgoing promotion and even holidays in
order to monitor and continue these corrupt sources of
income. A project team leader in a wet position could
generate double their income by diverting project funds to
private accounts (focus group 1). In addition, these posi-
tions were often bought through a corrupt process. As one
civil service expert explained:
It is quite simple actually. To be able to occupy a
position as a treasurer, which involved lots of work
related to project aid development, an employee had
to be ready to buy that position through bribery
instead of getting it through a career promotion.
Therefore, in their minds only someone who was
ready to buy the position and to be involved in
manipulations of the red-tape aid through price mark-
ups would get this position.
Identity and Rationalizing Ideologies
For this analysis, we used an inductive process to define
three identities that were reported by individuals, with
related rationalizations associated with each identity to
justify their personal corruption or the corrupt behaviors of
others in their professional role, discipline, or department
(see Table 2). These were: the professional civil servant,
the collegial civil servant, and the corrupt civil servant.
Among the 30 persons interviewed, three chose not to
speak about corrupt practices in detail. The remaining
interviews contained a mix of accounts of the interviewees
Rationalizations and Social Identities for Corruption
own corrupt behaviors, their observations of other persons
corrupt behaviors, and general reflections.
Professional Non-corrupt Civil Servant
Several interviewees specifically spoke of their identity as
being a professional civil servant who did not engage in
corruption, even though they were earning low salaries. To
protect and to maintain the valued role identity of being an
Indonesian civil servant, they found other ways to sup-
plement their income. They described the professional civil
servant as ethical, hard-working, accountable and focused
upon using public funds appropriately. They believed that
they were not alone in living these values, knowing many
other professional civil servants who had not been corrupt
despite their low salaries. For example, two respondents
reported as follows:
I have three kids I didnt want to exploit office
facilities. I worked night shift for about two years as
an English translator of company documents such as
contracts.
I was already used to a limited economic situation,
and therefore I didnt expect too much from the
beginning. I was lucky because my wife was also a
civil servant. She also gained extra income from a
small business.
These individuals were especially critical of a corrupt out-
group of senior officials and government leaders who
behaved in ways contrary to the prototype of the civil
servant leader or government official. As one civil servant
stated:
That money clearly didnt belong to them and they
still took it. Although their common sense and their
feelings told them it was wrong, they ignored these
and justified that it was right.
Collegial Civil Servant
A large number of the civil servants who were interviewed
identified with this social category. They had used funds
misdirected from granting bodies, but maintained that their
motivation was to achieve organizational objectives
including benefits for their department or work group.
Several interviewees spoke of controlling funds generated
through illegal means or gained from incentive payments
and honorariums. These funds allowed them or others to
complete valuable organizational tasks or to support
members of their work teams. A project manager stated:
If we got honorariums, we just talked openly about
how much we had collected in total honorariums for
145
the month. I received a certain percentage of money
from certification of land transactions which was a
legal arrangement. Then, all of these extra incomes
we had collected were kept for two or three months,
and then we just openly talked and I asked my staff
how to divide the money in a fair way.
Often extra money was used for additional incentives for
staff or for buying office equipment which was not
included in the official government budgets. As a manager
stated:
A division needed computers, air conditioners, and
room refurbishments that were not actually legal
office inventories. It was hard to get approval, too
bureaucratic and time consuming when following
legal procedures.
Other civil servants in this social category, however,
acknowledged taking part in corruption for personal gain,
including to benefit members of their extended family or to
help staff who were in financial need. They justified these
corrupt actions through multiple rationalizations around a
denial of responsibility, an appeal to higher loyalties, social
weighting, metaphor of the ledger and legality. The appeal
to a higher loyalty was often linked to a desire to be
compassionate towards others, as one interviewee
described:
On certain occasions you need to help an employee
with a serious illness, or to allow them to celebrate
Christmas and Hari Raya. This could be done by
additional made-up or marked-up fake reports.
At the core of the social identity of the collegial civil
servant was the promotion of a positive sense of ingroup
distinctiveness. The use of corrupt funds were discussed
openly, and allocated to serve the broader objectives of
the department, workgroup or to help employees who
were in financial need. These examples often represented
justification around an appeal to higher loyalties, in that
the volition of norms achieved higher-order organiza-
tional or group goals. Through applying these types of
rationalizations, the collegial civil servant protected their
professional identity as a civil servant despite their cor-
ruption. They also reframed the corruption as a collective
act that involved participative decision-making to support
objectives valued by work colleagues, rather than as an
individually motivated act for personal gain.
The Corrupt Civil Servant
This identity was used to describe an out-group of civil
servants who went beyond seeking a reasonable living.
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Typically interviewees explained the existence of the cor-
rupt civil servant as being due to a degradation of personal
values and standards (degradasi kepribadian). These cor-
rupt individuals were motivated by a desire to gain a life of
luxury rather than by other motives. They had moved
beyond a tipping point between actions that were justified
corruption that served often organizational or collective
goals and actions that were simply about personal greed:
Apart from insufficient salary, corruption was sup-
ported by the formalism of the administration. These
factors drove them to be corrupt. There were many
other ways to fulfil their needs but a lot of what they
did was not to meet their daily needs. They wanted
luxury. These were greedy people.
The few who admitted to major forms of corruption
were often more senior civil servants, and as with other
social identities, their rationalizations centered on denials
of responsibility and denials of injury to others. For
instance, one civil servant argued that following strict
bureaucratic practices were very expensive and time
consuming and so he manipulated the system to avoid
these procedures that were costly for others to apply. Over
time, personal financial gain became the major motivation
for continuing his corrupt acts rather than avoiding an
annoying process.
Corrupt civil servants were more likely to use the met-
aphor of the ledger. They rationalized that they were
entitled to engage in corrupt behaviors because of their
seniority, time in the role or the considerable responsibil-
ities in their jobs that were not recognized in their levels of
salaries. A senior civil servant recounted how the effort and
time required to fulfil his very challenging role was not
fairly covered through his salary. Another outlined the
difficult working conditions of teachers to justify engaging
in corruption. In short, these individuals used a range of
justifications to support their corrupt acts, but with a spe-
cial focus upon entitlements of their position. None of their
accounts, however, talked of collective benefits for mem-
bers of a valued ingroup through their corruption nor did
they identify themselves as members of a distinctive in-
group.
Discussion
Ashforth and Anand (2003) propose that in the final stage
of institutionalization, routinizing corruption becomes
normative and enacted mindlessly. This final stage existed
in the Indonesian civil service with corruption embedded in
the daily activities and administrative structures of public
sector organizations during the Suharto era. On the other
hand, the corruption in the Indonesian civil service was
123
A. Budiman et al.
most frequently described around benefits to the organi-
zation or ingroup members rather than for personal gain.
This finding could be merely impression management or an
expression of the collectivistic cultural norms that domi-
nate Indonesian life. However, one of the basic dimensions
around which scholars have sought to distinguish different
forms of corruption is whether the violator acts strictly for
private benefit or whether the beneficiary includes the
organization itself and its members (Pinto et al. 2008). The
majority of the corrupt acts by these Indonesian civil ser-
vants were committed by collectives of discrete individuals
in the context of complex relationships and in meeting
social and cultural expectations often around collectivistic
ideals. Their goals were often other than self-directed, with
a focus upon helping work colleagues, family, friends, and
other ingroup members.
A range of rationalizations were employed by Indone-
sian civil servants to explain corrupt acts. As others have
found, the poor pay received by civil servants in many
developing countries, pay structures that do not reward
skill, overstaffing and the legacy of colonialism are major
factors that foster corruption (see Rose-Ackerman 1999;
Stasavage 2000, Booth 2007). Also rationalizations were
highly interconnected (see Zyglidopoulos et al. 2009). One
example of this interconnectedness is misusing funds to
assist a staff member on compassionate grounds. This
action for some civil servants involved a denial of
responsibility. They believed that there had no other
choice, as low salaries did not provide staff with what was
needed. This action was also connected to appeals to higher
loyalties around the welfare of staff or justified by social
weighting when compared with the massive corruption and
personal gain by those at higher levels. Finally, as some
support for the universality of these rationalizations, these
Indonesian civil servants made use of at least six of these
eight rationalizations developed more around the experi-
ences of white collar crime in western accounts of cor-
ruption (Ashforth and Anand 2003). However, there was no
obvious use of rationalizations around denial of the victim
and refocusing attention.
The developing country context meant that low levels of
salary were at the core of rationalizations around the denial
of responsibility. However, there were also nuances within
this rationalizing ideology. For instance, more often at
lower salary levels, a denial of responsibility was used to
justify supplementing incomes that were judged to be too
low. The frequent use of this justification possibly served to
protect or even enhance the social identity of members of
at least one social category of civil servants (i.e., collegial
civil servants). At a psychological level, corruption was not
a major threat to the valued social identity of the civil
servant as funds were directed to meet what were perceived
to be the genuine needs of members of other important
Rationalizations and Social Identities for Corruption
social groups, that is, their professional group, their family
or their department (Abrams and Hogg 1990). However,
corruption by those at higher levels with adequate salary
was judged to be motivated by the less justifiable motives
around personal greed, with those individuals perceived to
be a despised outgroup by some of those interviewed.
As people form, repair, or revise constructions of iden-
tities that support their individual and collective sense of
self, it is proposed that feelings of ambivalence are a nat-
ural feature of conscious identity work (Sveningsson and
Alvesson 2003). Levels of ambivalence are heightened
especially in dealing with unethical practices that empha-
size inconsistencies between what individuals are either
doing themselves or witnessing in terms of inappropriate
acts (Ashforth and Anand 2003). Many of these civil ser-
vants expressed a sense of ambivalence associated with
their corrupt actions and the corrupt behaviors of others in
similar professional roles. The collegial civil servant who
was the major social category acknowledged that they
misdirected funds, but did so to achieve corporate goals
and objectives or for the benefit of others. These intervie-
wees justified their actions by multiple and interconnected
rationalizing ideologies that included denial of responsi-
bility, appeals to higher loyalties and social weighting.
Rationalizing ideologies serve as a sedative that facili-
tates steps down the road to higher levels of corruption
(Ashforth and Anand 2003). Individuals in the collegial
civil servant category were corrupt, but did not report
engaging in deeper levels of corruption. One explanation
might be the considerable evidence around the existence of
a tipping point, where behaviors moved from being judged
by ingroup members as acceptable (i.e., to conform rather
than to be deviant; Cressey 1986), to unacceptable acts for
the civil servant. Moving to the next stage of corruption
opened up the real prospect of rejection by ones peers, and
given the views expressed towards the corrupt civil servant,
this level of rejection by professional peers could be quite
intense.
A wide range of rationalizing ideologies was employed
by these Indonesian civil servants. Possibly as they found
their actions difficult to justify, multiple rationalizations
were required to manage the considerable feelings of
ambivalence generated by their corruption. Alternatively,
the mix of rationalizations might reveal that corruption had
not become mindless for the vast majority of these indi-
viduals, as suggested by Ashforth and Anand (2003). The
mix of rationalizations might also reflect that over time
individuals adopt different identity positions with their
different rationalizing ideologies. Interestingly, corrupt
civil servants made the most use of rationalizations around
a sense of entitlement (i.e., metaphor of the ledger), while
rationalizations are particularly potent when they become
the property of a group to justify their corruption (Ashforth
147
and Anand 2003). However, as rationalizations can also be
invoked retrospectively after the act (Zyglidopoulos and
Fleming 2008), more longitudinal research is needed to
track this interplay between identities and rationalizing
ideologies over time.
Points for Intervention and Further Research
These findings emphasize that the existence of corruption
should not be interpreted as a dichotomy of corrupt and
non-corrupt behaviors. Some of our interviewees believed
that corrupt behavior could be avoided in some circum-
stances, even where corruption was deeply embedded in
their society. In particular, the reasons for corruption reveal
points for intervention in developing countries. Low salary,
poor governance structures and blurred legality all point to
structural interventions (see Olken 2007). For example,
targeted structural reforms around increased pay, improved
work conditions, challenges to a system based on seniority
and privilege, and more accountability have the capacity to
reduce structures and cultures that support corruption.
Ashforth and Anand (2003) argue that individuals need
to be accountable for the means, as well as the ends.
However, there are challenges in such reforms. Public
administration reforms such as cutting down on prolifer-
ating functions of government departments, the introduc-
tion of voucher systems to bring about competition with
private providers and incentive pay structures can be
accompanied by job losses which often stiffens resistance
to reform (Bardhan 1997). Also the nature of rationaliza-
tions indicates other points of entry for reducing corrup-
tion. The appeal to higher loyalties rationalization can be
responded to through stronger sanctions and clearer codes
of conduct. Leaders need to demonstrate ethical values to
remove rationalization through social weighting. The sys-
temic nature of corruption in the project system as a
potential denial of injury might be dealt with by increased
ownership of project outcomes at operational levels.
Finally our analysis is not intended to understate the
complexity of corruption in developing economies or in
complex organizational and social settings, nor is it
intended to excuse the behavior of corrupt individuals. The
research supports the need for greater demonstration of
integrity by senior leaders, the development of codes of
conduct that clearly indicate what is legal and desirable
conduct and what is not, and the development of a more
efficient accountable and a better paid public sector as
valid reforms. At a theoretical level, our research suggests
a need to better understand nuances within identities and
rationalizing ideologies to more fully understand how
individuals manage the threats to valued professional
identities that do emerge as a result of corruption.
123
148
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