International mega-corruption Inc.: the structural violence against sustainable development
Critical Perspectives on International Business
ISSN: 1742-2043
Article publication date: 5 January 2021
Issue publication date: 21 February 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the underlying structural foundations that explain why mega (large-scale) corruption exists in an ever-more sophisticated form and how and why the phenomenon remains an intractable threat to global socio-economic stability and sustainable development.
Design/methodology/approach
Post-colonial theory is used along with critical perspectives on corruption in international business. The paper privileges the decolonization of the current paradigm where “hegemonic orthodoxy” is maintained and enforced through domesticated criticism of corruption in academic literature and in the media.
Findings
The author explains the foundations of “International mega-Corruption Incorporated” (ImC Inc.) and concludes that apart from being the results of greed and criminal intent, it is a designed and weaponized violent instrument for undermining human progress. ImC Inc. occurs through resource control and the manipulation of institutions. Thus, the same theories, the same analyses and the same media exposés on the “pandemic of ImC Inc.” are followed by the same inactions or lacklustre interventions that ignore the powerful international financial institutions serving as the major facilitators.
Social implications
The nature of ImC Inc. as an existential threat requires mass awareness about its historicity and deep-seated influence on institutions, in order for stakeholders to form a countervailing power to proactively disrupt it in its complexity and in contextually meaningful ways.
Originality/value
This paper provides useful clarifications about specific factors that determine how ImC Inc. exists and thrives in its current form and how to deploy sweeping, corrective and pre-emptive interventions rather than reactionary policies against ImC Inc.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Professor Dr Christopher Dörrenbächer, the Editor of Critical Perspectives on International Business for his guidance and insightful comments. Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers and my esteemed colleagues for their critical review and helpful comments on the earlier versions of the paper. The usual caveats apply.
Citation
Ahen, F. (2022), "International mega-corruption Inc.: the structural violence against sustainable development", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 178-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-04-2018-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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