Organization's Seminar

Topic:Culture and Judgment of Corrupt Acts: The Roles of Agency Beliefs and Attributions

Speaker:Zhi Liu, Columbia Business School

Time:Thursday, 18 Dec., 9:00-10:30AM

Location:Room K01,Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:Nowadays we do business more and more across boarders. We need to know what other people think as inappropriate and what their sensitivities are so that we can adapt our behaviors when dealing with each other and communicate effectively with each other. My research programs focus onwhenandwhyAmerican and Chinese judge corrupt acts differently. Past research suggested that individuals are perceived as more salient, intentional and autonomous social actors in American culture whereas groups are perceived as more salient and powerful social actors in Chinese culture. Accordingly, my first line of research finds that bribery by individuals is less tolerated in American culturewhereas bribery by organizations is less tolerated in Chinese culture (Studies 1a, 1b & 3).This is because Americans see the individual bribery as driven more by the individual’sintrinsic motives (e.g., moral standard, ambition) and the organizational bribery as drivenmore by external reasons (e.g., business competition, industrial norms), whereas Chinesetend to see more external excuses for individual bribery but more internal problems inorganizational bribery (Study 3). Moreover, bicultural participants in Hong Kong whofeel their Western and Chinese cultural identities to be compatible show characteristicallyAmerican (Chinese) pattern of judgment in reaction to American (Chinese) culturalprimes (Study 2).A second line of research finds that Chinese are more lenient than Americans towards their leader’s bribing behavior (e.g., bribing the foreign government officials to get market entry permit). This is because Americans have a stronger belief in individual agency so they hold the individual more morally responsible for the behavior, whereas Chinese have a stronger belief in group agency so they don’t hold the individual to take full causal responsibility (Study 1). When the agency of groups (versus individuals) is experimentally made salient, Americans become more lenient toward the leader (Study 2) and attribute the bribery more to the group characteristics than the leader’s personal characteristics (Study 3).The research contributes to the understandingof cultural differences in judgment of corrupt acts and, more importantly, thepsychological mechanisms of cultural effects. It also points to the different blind spots ofanti-corruption in these cultures and the importance of emphasizing both agencyconstruals in curbing corrupt acts in both cultures.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!