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Religiosity and corruption acceptability in a developing country: does patriotism mediate the relationship?

Albert Puni (Department of Business Administration, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana)
Sam Kris Hilton (Department of Research, Kricet Insight, London, UK and Department of Economics, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana)
Ibrahim Mohammed (School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China)

International Journal of Ethics and Systems

ISSN: 2514-9369

Article publication date: 2 December 2024

67

Abstract

Purpose

Religiosity is believed to have an effect on corruption acceptability but the mechanism by which its effect is realized is not fully known. In this study, we explore the potency of patriotism as a mediating variable on the relationship between religiosity and corruption acceptability in a developing context.

Design/methodology/approach

We use cross-sectional data from the World Values Survey on Ghana which was collected from 1,552 respondents. We analyse the data using descriptive statistics, correlation and macro PROCESS model in SPSS.

Findings

We ascertain that while religiosity has a significant direct negative effect on corruption acceptability, it has no significant direct effect on patriotism or indirect effect on corruption acceptability. However, patriotism has a positive significant effect on corruption acceptability. Furthermore, the findings reveal that private-sector employees, as compared to public sector employees, are more likely to perceive corruption as unacceptable. Similarly, females are more likely than males to perceive corruption as unacceptable. We conclude that patriotism does not mediate the relationship between religiosity and corruption acceptability.

Originality/value

Our findings have bridged the gap in extant literature by revealing that patriotism is not an effective mediator in the relationship between religiosity and corruption acceptability in developing country context. Therefore, we provide evidence for building a strong link between religiosity and socio-moral conduct, where the conscience of citizens will be developed against the acceptability of corruption.

Keywords

Citation

Puni, A., Hilton, S.K. and Mohammed, I. (2024), "Religiosity and corruption acceptability in a developing country: does patriotism mediate the relationship?", International Journal of Ethics and Systems, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-05-2024-0126

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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