Corruption

Week 1: What is Corruption?

Corruption affects us all and millions of people around the world protest against it every day. What is corruption? How do we know it when we see it? This module is designed to give you an understanding of both the definition and the key components of corruption. You’ll learn about the general and legal definitions of corruption, how to measure it using the Corruptions Perceptions Index, examine the history of corruption, and evaluate where corruption takes place in the world. You'll also learn three major theories that attempt to explain the current "Eruption in Corruption" that we are facing today. By the end of this module, you’ll be able to explain what corruption is, how it is measured, the costs of corruption, and how corruption spreads so that you can begin identifying and measuring corruption where it affects you.

Week 2: Societal Level Effects

In this module, you'll explore the extensive effects of corruption, including its economic, social and psychological costs. You'll learn how corruption leads to the informal creation of parallel institutions, such as loansharking and black markets, and see the role decision makers play in enabling the spread of corruption. You'll also learn how trust is jeopardized, and how this loss of trust inhibits economic and social development. You'll examine the social costs of corruption, including decreases in the quality of infrastructure and in environmental quality, increases in terrorism and infant mortality, and other threats to human security. At the end of this module, you'll be able to outline the comprehensive effects of corruption so that you can determine strategies for addressing them.

Week 3: Individual Firm Level Effects

This module was designed to help you explore the ethics behind corruption through external and internal relationships. You'll learn about the time and monetary costs of corruption, perspectives on the benefits of bribery, and the characteristics of a strong ethical climate. You'll also learn how to identify indirect costs of corruption, including those that are easy to predict, like fines and settlements, and those which are harder to quantify, such as effects on an individual's reputation. At the end of this module, you'll be able to define corruption as part of a relationship, outline the costs of corruption on those relationships, and categorize the sanctions, both predictable and unpredictable, imposed on corrupt entities.

Week 4: Corruption Control

In this module, you will learn the main theories about control of corruption. You'll explore whether or not corruption can be controlled. Then, you'll examine the different ways corruption can be controlled: firms, industries, and polities (organized societies). You'll learn about assurance problems, platforms for exchange, and certification programs as some methods of control. You'll look at the steps organized societies have taken to control corruption, including the example of a country that used to have the cleanest government in the world. By the end of this course, you will be able to apply the principles you’ve learned by assessing the work of your peers in a Peer Review assignment. You'll create a Corruption Analysis in which you identify and analyze a real life incident of corruption that has occurred anywhere in the world over the past 12-18 months.