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This study aims to analyse Rolls-Royce’s (RR) recent corruption case, its 2017 global anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) manual, and its 2017 annual report to assess whether it has put the best corruption prevention strategies into place.

This is a legal case study based on RR’s 2017 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the UK serious fraud office. It uses the new ISO 37001 standard as a theoretical framework.

RR’s DPA suspends an indictment covering 12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt, false accounting and failure to prevent bribery. RR’s ABC manual exhibits significant shortcomings as compared to ISO 37001’s requirements. RR’s ABC manual does not provide any reference to the setting, reviewing and achievement of measurable anti-bribery objectives; does not state that anti-bribery training is provided at planned intervals to employees and external business associates that pose more than a low risk of bribery; does not explain the authority and independence of its head of ethics and compliance; does not state any maximum for gifts and hospitality given or received; does not provide clear assurances that reports made through its main internal channels will be treated confidentially and that complaints about senior management will be investigated by an outside firm; and does not subject its advisers to a formal due diligence process. RR’s annual report notes that it operates in an industry prone to corruption. Finally, internal control failure and compliance fatigue mean that no anti-bribery management system can be completely effective.

This paper extends previous research by analysing the best corruption prevention strategies that organizations can implement. It does not endeavour to certify whether RR is ISO 37001 compliant, and it analyses only publicly available documents.

This study’s prevention strategies will help deter corruption and improve internal controls within organizations.

No previous study has used the new ISO 37001 standard as a framework for such corruption case analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of S&P 500 companies’ transparency by analyzing their Bloomberg ESG (Environmental-Social-Governance) disclosure scores. Additionally, the effects of industry sector, firm size, and governance practices on transparency are examined.

Data were retrieved from Bloomberg using the financial analysis environmental, social and governance function for companies comprising the S&P 500 index. Descriptive statistics are provided on each of the three components separately (ESG). Nonparametric procedures are used to test for significant differences in transparency within each of these three areas based on industry sector. Additionally, nonparametric tests are used to determine the impact of firm size (market capitalization) and governance factors (board size, board gender diversity, chief executive officer (CEO) duality, and linking executive compensation to ESG disclosure) on the composite ESG score.

Descriptive statistics reveal that S&P 500 companies differ in their level of disclosure across the three areas (ESG). The highest level of transparency is found on Governance and the lowest on Environmental. Moreover, there is much variability in the percentage of S&P 500 companies disclosing information about specific Social policies (e.g. child labor). Significant differences in transparency on both the Social and Governance dimensions are found between certain industry sectors. The results also reveal that large-cap companies have significantly higher ESG disclosure scores than mid-cap companies and that governance factors impact ESG disclosure. Significantly, higher ESG disclosure scores are observed for S&P 500 firms with larger boards of directors, with boards that are more gender diverse, that allow CEO duality, and that link executive compensation to ESG scores.

This study focuses on corporate transparency through a granular analysis of ESG disclosure scores when most other studies have been primarily conducted at the macro level. Stakeholders, analysts, and shareholders are increasingly scrutinizing firms’ sustainability disclosures in their assessment of management quality, as it reflects on the practices/policies that are employed to improve firms’ environmental and social footprints.

This study aims to investigate the impact of country-level corruption and firms’ anti-bribery policies on analyst coverage. Analyst coverage has been identified as a powerful tool to detect fraud and should equally act as a possible tool to reduce corruption.

This study used a negative binomial count regression method on a longitudinal data set of a sample of S&P Global 1200 companies for the years 2010-2015. To control for potential endogeneity bias and improve the reliability of the estimation, both country-level corruption and firms’ anti-bribery policies variables were instrumented.

After controlling potential endogeneity bias, the results show that the adoption of anti-bribery policies at firm level attracts more analysts to follow a firm. The results for corruption at country level show that analyst coverage increases in less corrupted countries indicating that the costs of corruption exceed its potential benefits. When the variables corruption at country level and anti-bribery policies are interacted, the relationship is positive and highly significant.

Given the potential important role played by anti-corruption measures, firms are encouraged to adopt them to reduce the incidence of corruption and to increase analyst coverage, which will reinforce the benign effect of monitoring.

Although the literature on corruption at the country level is rich, it is geared towards the determinants of corruption in contrast to its consequences, and fewer studies have focused on the impact of corruption at firm level because of data limitations. This paper addresses this gap and contributes to the literature on the consequences of corruption at firm level.

This paper aims to explore the extent of anti-bribery disclosures in the annual reports of the banks listed on UAE financial markets by differentiating between Islamic and conventional banks and examine the effect of anti-bribery disclosure on bank’s performance.

This study uses in the first stage the content analysis to explore the extent of anti-bribery disclosure in the annual reports of the banks. In the second stage, the dynamic panel two-step robust system has been applied to study the impact of the anti-bribery disclosure on banking performance.

The empirical results show that the anti-bribery disclosure is at low levels for all banks and that there are no significant differences in overall anti-bribery disclosure between the two banking systems while there are significant differences in “anti-bribery human resources practices” between Islamic and conventional banks. The dynamic panel data results show that the association between the anti-bribery disclosure and the bank’s performance is not significant as this kind of information is not clearly disclosed in the annual reports of the banks.

The study suggests to the UAE central bank and financial markets regulators to design a framework of anti-corruption disclosure by considering the international anti-corruption regime as an effort to respond to the international development of the bribery practices.

Anti-bribery concerns all the banks over the world and this research is the first study that constructs an index to measure the anti-bribery disclosure and helps in providing the status of the banking industry in terms of anti-bribery disclosure within an emerging market in the objective to improve the transparency in combatting the bribery.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an updated review of Canadian foreign official anti-bribery policy.

To achieve this objective, seven factors were examined. Several factors have been emphasized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and others are original.

The results indicate that while Canada is making progress towards strengthening its foreign official anti-bribery policy, significant weaknesses still remain.

This study adds to the literature in this area by utilizing several new factors which attempt to gauge the effectiveness of foreign official anti-bribery policy.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceptions of the grassroots on the impact of combative policy measures, strategies and programs introduced by the government and the civil society to reduce persistent occurrences of bribery practices in Nigeria.

Multi-stage or cluster sampling was used to acquire the data for this paper via survey questionnaire administered to the grassroots in Abuja, Nigeria. The data set is used to assess the impact of the various policy measures, strategies and programs on the persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria. The multiple linear regression method was used to estimate the data generated from 836 responses in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.

The result of the estimations indicates that the respondents perceived that some of the policy measures, strategies and programs introduced have reduced persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria, whereas others have remained ineffective in reducing the persistence of bribery practices in Nigeria.

Previous studies on the impact of anti-bribery policy measures, strategies and programs were largely based on the perceptions of international institutions and business executives; this study appears to be the pioneer to focus on the perceptions of the grassroots in Abuja, Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to identify mechanisms by which an international obligation to prevent or punish corporate bribery can be enforced by a national law through trade relations.

The UK Bribery Act 2010 is an example of national law which enforces OECD anti‐bribery norms, with a view to effecting an institutional change in the law and morality of other countries. Taiwan is used as a case study to look at how the UK Act may achieve its intended purposes.

The paper identifies three modes of governance in the enforcement of the Act: legal exclusivism, legal inclusivism, and legal pluralism. In the mode of legal exclusivism, the Act disregards the morality of Taiwan so as to enforce the principle of transparency in trade. In the mode of legal inclusivism, the Act allows UK multinational companies to make their own “laws” so that anti‐bribery norms can be more efficiently and effectively diffused. But in the mode of legal pluralism, the Act is forced to acknowledge the law and morality of other countries (e.g. Taiwan), especially when mutual legal assistance is crucial for cross‐border investigation and prosecution.

Although this paper is based on an analysis of how the Act will interact with the law and morality of Taiwan, the model developed provides a lens through which one can show how an international norm enforced by a national law can function in a way that brings about institutional change in other countries.

The paper provides a new insight into how legal norms can be diffused through trade.

This article aims to report on the development and validation of a bribery measurement index for the business sector, which, based on institutional theory, seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional measurements, recognizing the dynamics that originate the phenomenon and identifying process components.

To construct the index, correlational and principal component analysis techniques were used, as well as rigorous statistical tests, validating the instrument in a sample of 2,963 companies in Latin America, including Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

The result was an instrument composed of two dimensions: (1) anti-bribery game rules, composed of regulations knowledge and anti-bribery efforts, and (2) bribery as a perceived habit, allowing an objective representation of reality due to its internal consistency, concurrent and discriminant validity.

This instrument is one of the few that focuses on measuring bribery in the business sector in terms of corrupt practices, applicable for both public and private institutions to promote game rules against bribery. Additionally, the proposed theoretical model can be used to measure other phenomena with similar characteristics.

This article empirically highlights different variables that make bribery possible. The results can be helpful in the design of strategies to prevent this type of behavior. It also highlights the importance of designing mechanisms to record information related to bribery and the different expressions of corruption in order to explain its different nuances.

Este artículo informa sobre el desarrollo y validación de un índice de medición de soborno para el sector empresarial, que, basado en la teoría institucional, busca superar las limitaciones de las mediciones tradicionales, reconociendo las dinámicas que originan el fenómeno e identificando los componentes del proceso.

Para la construcción del índice se utilizaron técnicas de análisis correlacional y de componentes principales, así como rigurosas pruebas estadísticas, validando el instrumento en una muestra de 2.963 empresas de América Latina, entre ellas Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, México y Perú.

El resultado fue un instrumento compuesto por dos dimensiones: (1) reglas de juego antisoborno, compuestas por conocimiento normativo y esfuerzo antisoborno (2) soborno como hábito percibido, permitiendo una representación objetiva de la realidad debido a su consistencia interna, validez concurrente y discriminante.

Este artículo pone en evidencia empírica diferentes variables que hacen posible el soborno. Los resultados pueden ser útiles en el diseño de estrategias para prevenir este tipo comportamiento, también destaca la importancia de diseñar mecanismos para registrar la información relacionada con la lucha contra el soborno.

Este instrumento es uno de los pocos que se enfoca en medir el soborno en el sector empresarial en términos de prácticas de corrupción, útil para instituciones tanto públicas como privadas para promover mejores reglas de juego en contra del soborno. Adicionalmente el modelo teórico propuesto puede ser utilizado para medir otros fenómenos con características similares.

This article aims to examine some of the implications of the UK Bribery Act (UKBA) 2010 for business in Africa and reviews the effectiveness of strategies African governments have adopted to prevent bribery. The author proposes the development of a bespoke anti-bribery management system (ABMS) based on empirical research. This would help African institutions overcome some of the challenges associated with enforcing regulatory measures formulated in developed countries.

The paper takes the form of a literature review and commentary.

The UKBA has extra-territorial jurisdiction which empowers UK courts to prosecute cases of bribery committed abroad by UK companies and their associates. The risk of prosecution is likely to affect foreign direct investment and official development aid flows to Africa. However, companies can escape prosecution if they can prove that they have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery. This raises the question as to whether the legislation shifts the responsibility of fighting bribery to under-resourced overseas business partners and supply chains. While most African governments have adopted robust anti-bribery laws, their enforcement is hampered by weak institutions.

Empirical research is required to assess the impact of the legislation over the next five years.

African organisations must be sensitised about the consequences of violating the UKBA to ensure they adopt appropriate anti-bribery strategies.

This article contributes to literature by exploring the development of evidence based ABMS for African organisations which is currently lacking.