CHAPTER 11

Testing the Effectiveness of Innovative Teaching Tools to Train Anti-Corruption Students

Ernestina Giudici, Federica Caboni and Roberta Atzori

Abstract

One of the most frequent topics that occupy the TV news and newspaper pages is certainly corruption. This phenomenon is so prevalent nowadays as well as throughout the history of humanity. Moreover, it is so multi-faceted that it is difficult to apply a unique shared definition. Taking the spread of corruption into consideration, the aims of this work are: to understand what students knowledge is about the damages that corruption can cause; verify if we as teachers are adequately preparing our students to be ethically correct and not corrupt; which form of communication and teaching tools are more able to interact with students to create a durable awareness of how damaging corruption can be.

To have unequivocal answers, we directly involved the students of the Business Communication course at the University of Cagliari (Italy) to become co-producers of teaching tools. The results of the experiment highlight that students respond positively to being directly involved in their learning process, and that their preferred tools are social networks, comics, movies and storytelling. In this chapter some student work will be presented.

Introduction

Corruption is a phenomenon that can be observed throughout the history of humanity. If the previous observation is true, we can question why the phenomenon has drawn more attention from scholars, politicians, managers, and so on only from certain decades?

A possible answer can be found by considering the shift from a closed to an open world.¹ In fact, corrupted actions in a not interconnected world consume their effects inside the area in which they occur; on the contrary, in the actual world in which each area is highly interconnected with each other, also the corrupted actions are more widespread all over the world than in the past.

The above cited is only one of the numerous reasons that put the corruption phenomenon in the headlines and therefore it is not possible not to deal with focus and determination: it is impossible to derogate any longer.

To combat and prevent the corruption phenomenon, the engagement of the most important international organizations has clearly been increasing from the end of the previous century to today.

One of the first international official documents where corruption is clearly named as a serious crime is the Global Compact.² More exactly principle 10 (of the 12 that compose the Compact) state: Business should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery. The Global Compact is a set of rules that are voluntarily subscribed to: on September 2010, 6,000 participating companies from 135 countries, and 2,300 non-business participants had joined.

The United Nations with its United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), referring to corruption states that: “Corruption is a complex social, political and economic phenomenon that affects all countries. Corruption undermines democratic institutions, slows economic development and contributes to governmental instability.”

It is on December 14, 2005 that the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)³ entered in force. The UNCAC is the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument. This Convention is relevant for many reasons, but first of all because it presents a clear, strong, unequivocal position of intolerance towards corruption and a public declaration to combat this detrimental phenomenon with all the necessary tools. This convention marked a big change: it brought to light a phenomenon that in the past was only whispered.

To invite all the people of the world to discuss, organize actions, report corruption, and so on, December 9 was elected as the International Anti-Corruption Day.

In December 2011, the motto was: What Can You Do? Act against Corruption! The site of the event invites people to say a big “No” to this crime and suggests that we “Engage the youth of your country about what ethical behavior is, what corruption is and how to fight it, and to demand their right to education. Ensuring the future generations of citizens are brought up to expect corruption-free countries is one of the best tools to ensure a brighter future.”

As a demonstration of the continuing and growing attention to supporting states, organizations and citizens in the fight against corruption, on September 1, 2011, UNODC has launched a web-based anti-corruption portal known as Tools and Resources for Anti-Corruption Knowledge.

Also the European Parliament pushes for European Union (EU)-wide sanctions against corruption.⁴ Corruption costs the EU €120 billion per year, almost as much as the EU’s annual budget. The economic crisis in many EU countries makes anti-corruption measures all the more urgent.

A question can be posed: why despite the efforts of the abovementioned international institutions, has corruption not decreased significantly? Is it because the efforts are not aimed at the right portion of the population, which is at young people (as the Anti-Corruption Day aim suggests)? And, also if the attention is aimed at young people, are we sure that the most appropriate tools and language are adopted?

To know what students think (as a significant representation of young people) we did an experiment involving students of the Managerial Economics Course (II level), attending the Communication course for the academic year 2011–2012 at the University of Cagliari. The experiment had the aim of understanding what kind of teaching tools are more useful to interact with students, speaking their own language. The expected results were, in this way, suggestions on the most correct tools able to help teachers engage in preventing corruption.

The next point is devoted to discussing the complexity of finding a shared corruption definition with the help of scholar’s contributions. The subsequent point—the core of the chapter—is devoted to analyzing the experimented work with students as co-producers. Finally, some comments are presented.

Not an Easy Task: To Find a Shared Corruption Definition

How should we define corruption? To find a definition for corruption universally accepted by scholars is very hard because different forms of corruption exist in society, in several sectors. In a general way corruption can be defined as the use of money or gifts to get certain kinds of benefits and advantages or utilities,⁵ or synthetically, corruption can be defined as “a private gain at public expense.”⁶

The term corruption may be related to behaviors that are carried out at various levels to obtain a certain goal: institutions, organizations, human beings. As Vargas-Hernandez points out, all forms of corruption are based on the potential conflict between the individual’s professional and personal interests and values but to find out the causes of different forms of corruption proves to be a difficult task.⁷ To highlight the destructive force that corruption may have, Carvajal⁸ defines them as “a social pathology. It has much the same effect on the development of a nation that cancer has on the life of a biological organism.”

On the more or less possibility of the diffusion of corruption, culture can play a significant role. As Jing and Graham⁹ argue, cultural values significantly affect the level of corruption of a certain country. They found that countries with higher power distance and lower individualism tend to be more corrupt. The previous observation is confirmed also by Hofstede’s¹⁰ contribution: he underlines that corruption can have a fertile ground in societies in which people tend to accept authority and dependence and power is not equally distributed and where group membership and cooperation is widespread and people are not expected to look only after themselves and their immediate family.

The capillary diffusion of corruption may appear clear in considering some other definitions: Waldman¹¹ states that corruption regards public officials who misuse their authority and power to violate legal norms, while Dion¹² observes that the main agent of corruption is not always a public official, but the phenomenon also includes corruption among private agents. Cragg¹³ proposes a definition highlighting that corruption is any attempt, whether successful or not, to persuade someone in a position of responsibility to make a decision or recommendation on any grounds other than the intrinsic merits of the case with a view to the advantage or advancement of himself or herself or another person or group to which he or she is linked through personal commitment, obligation, or employment or individual, professional, or group loyalty.

Corruption is often seen as “someone corrupting someone else,” while Dion¹⁴ categorizes corruption levels by arguing that corruption does not only concern people, organizations, and institutions, but firstly, it regards the corruption of principles and the corruption of moral behavior inside individuals.

Considering corruption as a result of an acquired role of power, Anechiarico and Jacobs¹⁵ define corruption as abuse of authority for material gain; an alternative definition of corruption is the exchange of wealth for power, where the power is rooted in a public position proposed by Jain.¹⁶ “Bribery is committed when a public servant is offered, promised or granted, in return for an action already carried out or is to be expected.”¹⁷

Two other scholars, Rendtorff and Wankel,¹⁸ give suggestions on the way to go to reduce the corruption emergence and growth. Rendtorff¹⁹ gives attention to the ethical responsibility and points out that without ethical responsibility, political power is doomed to end in corruption. Politicians need a strong integrity not to be tempted by corruption; a person with strong moral principles and who does not accept being bought by money, gifts, or other types of support. Wankel²⁰ invites us to reflect on the role of corporate culture and writes: “Since a corporate culture is largely a reflection of the shared values of the members of an organization, changing the values of those entering into organizations is one way to spark organizational culture change in the future.”

These two last contributions invite us—as teachers—to reflect on how essential our role is in instilling in our students the awareness of anti-corruption. In fact, supporting the Wankel observation, if we are able to form students’ awareness of how dangerous corruption is, when they are inserted in an organization may work to create a new organizational climate able to involve all organization members and develop a place with a strong corruption reduction. For this reason, business school and all levels of education play an important role in being part of the solution against corruption by developing moral fiber in their students. By adopting several teaching tools, it is possible to help students to understand the consequences of corruption for society, and in this way to spark anti-corruption behavior.²¹

To involve students in lectures that permit them to understand the negative consequences of corruption practices, it is necessary to use teaching tools close to the perceptions, languages, and the way of thinking of the new generation of students, such as social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), comics, cartoons, and other similar interactive tools.

Normally we talk about corruption in political, economic, and public administration sector, but probably these are only sectors in which it is simple to find corruptive practices. Indeed, several forms of corruption such as bribery, collusion, fraud, extortion, abuse of discretion, favoritism, nepotism, and many others, can be found in all sectors of society today,²² in the private sphere, in the public sphere, in the enterprises sphere and in the sphere of many other societies. And for these reasons it is fundamental to engage people in their first phase of life, such as students, in order to develop a strong awareness of how damaging corruption can be for society as a whole, based on the internalization of principles that are like a protective armor to anti-corruption behaviors. In order that today’s students can be honest citizens and managers of tomorrow, it is necessary to speak about corruption in order to explain to them that any unlawful behavior can change to corruptive behavior and it can lead to the destruction and degradation of a community.

According to Pfeffer and Fong,²³ the role of schools in creating a culture of honesty and anti-corruption behaviors is fundamental; in fact, subjects should have a responsibility to provide practitioners with training in the basics of ethics that would ideally lead to an informed workplace and act as a catalyst to stimulate socially and ethically grounded corporate activities and programs.

What Teaching Tools Are Able to Prevent Corruption? Student’s Point of View (Co-Producers)

Today’s students will be tomorrow’s citizens and managers: this observation may appear obvious and trivial, but are we adequately preparing our students to be ethically correct and not corrupt? Do we really know what they think about corruption? Which form of communication and teaching tools are more able to interact with students to create a durable awareness of how damaging corruption can be?

In agreement with Luthar and Karri,²⁴ the more widespread perceptions of students are not always aware of the connection between ethical business behavior and the success they can achieve for themselves and their businesses. Is this perception correct?

To have unequivocal answers, what could be better than directly involving the students? Therefore, we decided to work together with students during the Communication course (academic year 2011–2012) from March to June, at the University of Cagliari where the authors work. The students’ involvement was deemed essential to understanding what students think about corruption, what teaching tools are more able than others to better interact with them, and what kind of communication they choose to speak student-to-student stimulating their sensibility.

The activity/experiment evolved through several steps.

The first one was devoted to creating a common awareness of what corruption is. Students were invited to read several papers²⁵ to be discussed in class together. In this way it was possible to share different definitions of corruption. Through student discussion, various kinds of corruption that express more or less level of corruption but all with a damaging influence to societal and economic systems were underlined.

An observation that clearly emerged from the student’s discussion was that some behaviors, even if they cannot be classified as corruption—strictu sensu—should be underlined and closely fought as signs of a potential tendency toward corruption: the example highlighted was cheating during exams.

The students’ belief is also supported by the study from McCabe, Butterfield, and Treviño²⁶ that found that 56% of MBA students admitted to having cheated in class. Also, according to Tang,²⁷ business students tend to behave unethically. Such unethical behavior becomes problematic when brought into the working environment and business by graduating students.²⁸

Students gave attention to the not strictu sensu corruption also because they possess the basic knowledge of the system thinking methodology, whose essential concept is the understanding of the existing interdependence among events, even if they seem insignificant at first glance.²⁹ More exactly, students are aware that “if the reality is not analyzed by adopting the system thinking approach, it is impossible to get a correct perception of the strong and numerous interdependences that exist among events. This also means that the unethical behavior does not appear randomly, but by combination, as system complexity explains.”³⁰

Once the corruption concept was shared, it was time to analyze some teaching tools to give students the basic knowledge to become “co-producers” in the experiment. Indeed, teachers and students together had the aim of verifying what teaching tools are more suitable to interact with students to help them not to be corruptible in their future life. Tools taken into consideration were narratives, social media, movies, comics, and cartoons. At the end of this analysis, each student chose his or her preferred tool and 20 small groups were trained.

The last step was the presentation of all jobs for which each student had to express his or her evaluation responding to few questions including: Is the object of communication clear? Who directed the communication? Do you think that the tool adopted has been effective?

Here not all the group work was analyzed (even if all of a really high standard!) but only a few with attention paid to taking several categories of teaching tools into account, and among those the tools that students estimated to be more effective.

The Student’s Perception of Corruption

A useful starting point is the contribution of the group³¹ that inserted a questionnaire on Facebook receiving 400 answers in 48 hours (a total of 645 in a couple of days). The interest in this work is dual: First, the survey clearly highlights that 75% of students are convinced that the corruption phenomenon is spread inside society nowadays; second, that mass media does not give adequate attention to corruption (38%), while others observed (41%) that the topic is treated only as a scandalous event (Figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1. Do you think that the phenomenon of corruption has the right emphasis in the media?

Source: The data were collected by the students: Francesco Caria, Casula Patrizia, Deidda Lisa, Illary Mei, Emanuela Pilloni.

Figure 11.2. Do you believe that actively participating in discussions in social media is easier to bring out the importance of the corruption phenomenon?

Source: The data were collected by the students: Francesco Caria, Casula Patrizia, Deidda Lisa, Illary Mei, Emanuela Pilloni.

The data that commands the most attention is that 62% of students expressed trust in the role of social networks in addressing the problem of corruption (Figure 11.2): this means that it is the tool that students consider the more familiar and the more adaptable as a vehicle for their communications. Another result has some interest: to the question “Do you think that the active participation of citizens can contribute to the fight against corruption?” 86% of students said “Yes.”

The survey also highlighted that students consider politics the most corrupted category (77%, while the economic system 10% and the health system 7%). To communicate with effectiveness, these results students chose to project a few minutes of one of Toto’s movies (The Honorable, 1963): the scene refers to a discussion between three members of the Italian Parliament who are organizing corruptive activities. Students chose this scene because corruption is ridiculed but it is useful as a starting point to compare the point of view of the past with the present. In fact, as the percentages highlighted above confirm, the political system is the most corrupted in people’s perception: unfortunately, with no changes from the past to present.

Small Bribes, Big Damages

Other groups chose to take into consideration actions that can appear not so dangerous or close to corruption, but only at first glance.

The first group taken into consideration³² chose to communicate how dangerous it can be to download music, movies, etc. illegally. Some might observe that even if illegal downloading can be considered a crime, it cannot be strictly included in the corruption concept. Students decided to include downloads because if it is true that particularly young people do this for their own use (illegal action that may open the door to future corruptive behavior), it is not exactly the same as the behavior of those organizations that download music, movies, etc. to sell it, obviously with the compliance of another party.

As Rendtorff³³ noted, both the person who uses bribery and the one who accepts it are responsible. Corruption is in fact a double relation between the two parts: it is possible to bribe someone only if this person accepts bribery; at the same time, in order to be accepted, somebody must offer the bribe.

The work of this group is a combination between social media and narratives. Of interest are the three steps of the path chosen to get in touch with young people, to attract their attention and to keep it.

The first step was devoted to creating a page on Facebook by inserting phrases creating curiosity and inviting subject to answer to the questionnaire. The inviting phrase was: “Download and file sharing: tell us your opinion!… and continue to follow us.” The second part of the phrase is the most important because it means that a “community” is beginning its life: people who choose to participate are accepting to be involved in discussions on corruption. Close to this phrase there was the link to the questionnaire with another inviting phrase to fill it out (Enter the Facebook page http://wwwfacebook.com/downloadlegale and fill out the questionnaire. Thanks!).

The second step was devoted to the analysis of the survey results: 329 people responded in a couple of days. As expected, 92% of respondents regularly download from the Internet in their spare time. The podium of the most downloaded is: first music, second movies and TV series, and third software. To the question “In your opinion is it correct to download illegally?” 52% answered “no” and 48% answered “yes.” The main reasons for the “no” is “It is incorrect to the authors,” and for the “yes” is “Legally downloading is too expensive” and “It is the easiest way I know.”

The third step focused on the inclusion on the community page created in the first step: (a) the survey results and (b) a specific created story.

The phrase inserted to introduce the survey results, and also to invite who responded to the survey to continue to contribute toward discussion on the corruption is: “Are you sure that there is nothing as an alternative to illegal downloads?… continue to follow us!” Moreover, students created and inserted a story on the Facebook page (Marco’s story) with the aim of highlighting how detrimental downloading illegally can be when considering the loss of jobs this could create. The story tells of a young man who is proud to download files illegally and does not understand why he should not do so, until he discovers that the father of one of his friends has been fired: he worked in a music store.

Table 11.1. Small Bribes, Big Dramas

Source: This comics has been created by students Silvia Atzu, Andrea Marcello, Marco Mereu and Claudio Andrea Saiu.

Close to this work, is that of another group³⁴ who chose comics as a tool to communicate how damaging corruption can be: obviously the situation is presented in a paradoxical and extreme way to cause a strong impact. The created comic, not randomly entitled Kevin Butterfly, is composed of 11 panels (Table 11.1) the sequence shows: a situation of a young college student who has clearly entered into an agreement with a colleague to copy during exams; the day of graduation with honors; the hiring as financial manager; his incompetence that emerges; the firm closing due to bankruptcy; all the workers bushing to survive. The last panel shows two sentences: Theories or sad reality? Small bribes, big dramas.

It is by reading the last panel that suggestions on the meaning of the name of the character emerges: in fact, the famous Lorenz butterfly effect inspired it: “Can the beating of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” No matter how big the bribe is, because the effect is always harmful.

In the students’ opinion (because each piece of work, as noted, was presented and evaluated by all the students attending the communication course) this comic was estimated one of the most effective ways to help young people understand the way in which behavior, not clearly considered as a bribe, can have harmful effects: just like the butterfly effect.

The work of this group is relevant from another point of view: sometimes we, as teachers, are not entirely conscious of the impact that concepts that we transmit to our students have, and above all, the methodologies that we use to teach. A clear example is the butterfly effect: it is a topic certainly not central to the first university level (that means minimum three years before the considered project), but it is a topic that is always discussed with the active involvement of students invited to recognize examples of the butterfly effect in the reality that surrounds us. It is a way to learn the role that “weak signals” are widespread, and it is common that students do not forget topics experienced firsthand, as the work presented in few lines above shows.

The Strength of Values

Two other groups chose to prepare both a short movie presentation: one regarding the AGESCI (Italian catholic scouts association),³⁵ and the other a sports association named Amsicora.³⁶ The common message is: if strong principles are given to young people, they will be incorruptible forever.

To better understand the message that comes from the Agesci movement with reference to acts to prevent corruption, it is important to underline that from the first moment that a child decides (or their parents) to be part of the movement, he/she begins to learn the essential values of scoutism, that is the values of the scouts’ identity. The result is the creation, day by day, of a strong identification and the sharing of values that would render any unethical, illegal, corrupted behaviors impossible.

In their work the students particularly focused their attention on the senior partners’ role: those who are engaged not only in transmitting ethical concepts but bearing witness with their lives. One phrase can be considered significant: Agesci teaches a child the right way to grow up.

More exactly, having as a reference values like cooperation, mutual respect, altruism, group life, loyalty, active citizenship, faith, the Agesci is engaged on the frontline to prevent corruption … to live the world a little better than how we found. Once a scout, always a scout!³⁷ The movie was developed inserting adequate music, with the correct time of each sequence, with an accurate choice of colors and a really strong effectiveness of sentence choices.

Amsicora is a sport organization born in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) in 1897. This date highlights the long life of this organization that has never become a big sporting organization as it steadfastly practiced the philosophy of honesty and correct behavior, which each of its CEO and all the associated sporting staff followed year after year .

The CEO of this organization, in the past and today, refused to accept sponsors seeking to declare an amount greater than that really paid to support various sports. In this way Amsicora often gets into economic trouble, but its determination not to succumb to corruption remains unchanged. It is usual in corruptive behavior that gifts are the tools adopted to insert corruption in a way that may appear not so unethical and not so damaging to all the people involved. It is not easy to refuse money that can help solve urgent problems for an ideal that considers sports activities capable of creating a future generation, which is not affected by the terrible cancer of corruption.

The movie presented begins with an interview of the sporting manager: only a few minutes with short and clear phrases that highlight the society’s philosophy. Close to this interview images regarding different groups of young people or children that are engaged in several sporting activities are presented: the leitmotif is the happiness and joy that shines from their faces, also if the green carpet is far from being perfect.

The Influence of a Lack of Culture

The last work is a video regarding a missionary experience in Brazil. Students³⁸ decided to present some images, one after the other with a quick rhythm, with the aim of immediately capturing the attention of the people to whom the communication is addressed. Once captured, it is possible to transmit the desired message: the lack of education creates a breeding ground for corruption. The challenge of those missionaries is to help the new generation to be educated and in this way understand what behaviors are common in the field of corruption.

The missionary interviewed highlights that “justice is lagging behind and the egoism of powerful people gives the idea that they are able to win any battle.” And the interviewee continues by saying: “In this situation, also giving some help is difficult, it is necessary that people are conscious of their rights. In these areas people are without identity, they do not exist. The corruption is the soul of the place and people think that this is the correct behavior: it was the behavior of their parents, their grandparents, and so on. The problem is that they do not know their rights: they do not know that they should have what they want independently of this corrupted system. Our goal is to create awareness of the real situation; it is not necessary to sell their vote in order to have water at home. Water should be considered a basic human right. Our major problem is that we have a lot of obstacles because the powerful people do not agree that people acquire awareness of their rights. But willpower is stronger than any obstacle and surely we should be the winner!”

Discussion and Conclusions

The presented works (but the same message came from those not presented), on the one hand, confirmed that students relished being involved, and, on the other hand, that the best way they prefer to communicate with each other is connected with visual³⁹ and social network tools.

This is a big suggestion for each teacher, and it is a stimulus to modify (if necessary) the adopted teaching methodology and tools if they are far from the student’s language and their way of learning.

Nowadays students are digital natives and teachers have the task of learning this way of interacting: on the contrary, the transmitter (teacher) and the receiver (students) are unable to communicate due to the noise caused by the different ways of learning that require the adoption of teaching tools such as comics, short films, storytelling, and, above all, social networks.

The results that emerge from the student’s involvement are clear: in order to help them to be honest men and women, who don’t accept corruption and who are ethically correct, it is necessary that the teacher speaks their language. Moreover, it is clear that students need to have an active role in their learning activity and that they prefer ironic communication, adopting metaphors, and dealing with serious subjects with joy.

Their evaluation of comics, social network, storytelling, and videos as the most effective objects is irrefutable: it is the time that teachers accept the challenge of adopting these and other innovative teaching tools.

Key Terms with Definitions

Anti-corruption: Any behavior in contrast to corruption activities, also when not well rendered.

Innovative teaching tools: Tools such as films, storytelling, photos, social media, which when adopted in teaching activities can help teachers in their essential role to instill the awareness of anti-corruption or, in general, the principles of ethical behavior into their students.

Effective teacher: A teacher who is able to communicate with students clearly. They should be in possession of the skills enabling them to use teaching tools close to the perceptions, languages and way of thinking of the new generation of students.

Study Questions

Additional Reading

Cornelius, N., Wallace, J., & Tassabehji, R. (2007). An analysis of corporate social responsibility, corporate identity and ethics teaching in business schools. Journal of Business Ethics 76, 117–135.

Falkenberg, L., & Woiceshyn, J. (2007). Enhancing business ethics: using cases to teach moral reasoning. Journal of Business Ethics 79, 213–217.

Svensson, J. (2005). Eight questions about corruption. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(3), 19–42.