The Impact of Culture on Corruption, Gross Domestic Product, and Human Development

The evidence of culture’s impact on corruption and its consequences is still inconclusive despite several investigations: (1) Sometimes, theory is lacking and causes and consequences seem exchangeable. Based on psychological research on the distribution and use of power, we predicted that a steeper distribution of power induces more corruption and elaborated its negative consequences in a complex causal model. (2) For measuring power distribution, pervading national culture, we augmented Hofstede’s ‘Power Distance’ with three additional indicators into a reversed, more reliable and valid culture composite called “Power Balanced Freedom” (PBF). (3) Instead of the usual regression and instrument approaches, which cannot estimate multiple causal chains including causal feedback, a non-recursive path analysis was employed with data from 85 nations. PBF predicted less national Corruption (62%), with positive effects on Gross Domestic Product (GDP, 72%) and Inequality Adjusted Human Development (IHDI, 66%, including Life Expectancy, Income, and Education). The often expected reverse effect of GDP on Corruption was not significant. Contrary to influential authors from economics, culture variables are the most important predictors of corruption and its consequences. Nonetheless, our extended model supports the main thrust of their ideas and adds more precision. Our conceptual distinction of the uses of power and our empirical measure PBF reflect Kant’s ethical imperative: freedom and autonomy for everyone. Widely shared life chances as measured by IHDI reflect utilitarian, consequentialist ideas. These different ethical approaches are connected in the confirmed causal model, in line with Rawls’ first and second principle of justice.Peer Reviewe

Data set "Power and Corruption" for The Impact of Culture on Corruption, Gross Domestic Product, and Human Development By Wolfgang Scholl & Carsten C. Schermuly

This data set is supplement material for the following article: Scholl, W., & Schermuly, C. C. (2018). The Impact of Culture on Corruption, Gross Domestic Product, and Human Development. Journal of Business Ethics

A social-signal processing approach to leadership: specific behaviors characterize considerate leaders.

Combining leadership research with findings from small group research and clinical psychology, we propose that three specific observable interaction behaviors of leaders are partially responsible for the positive effects of considerate leadership on team performance: Question asking, active listening, and behavioral mimicry, with the latter serving as a marker for rapport and empathy. In a laboratory experiment involving 55 three- person student groups who worked on a simulated personnel- selection task, we manipulated the leader’s leadership style as being either considerate or inconsiderate. The number of questions asked by the leader in the subsequent team interaction was obtained through behavioral coding, and active listening and behavioral mimicry were measured through social signal processing (voice analysis and motion tracking). In partial support of the hypotheses, leaders’ question asking and their active listening fully mediated the effect of the leadership manipulation on team performance. Leaders’ behavioral mimicry predicted subordinates’ ratings of the leader on the individualized consideration subscale and on the transformational leadership dimension of the MLQ questionnaire. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

What good leaders actually do: micro-level leadership behaviour, leader evaluations, and team decision quality

We supplement broad definitions of leadership behaviour with the concept of micro-level leadership behaviour, leaders’ verbal and non-verbal visible conduct and interaction. For the context of team decision-making, we identify two potentially beneficial micro-level leadership behaviours, question asking and behavioural mimicry. Specifically, we propose that under conditions of informational complexity and unshared information, participative leadership is most appropriate for team decision-making, that its effects are mediated by inquiring and empathy, and that question asking and mimicry are the behavioural micro-level manifestations of inquiring and empathy. We thus hypothesize that the effect of participative leadership on team decision quality and leader evaluation is mediated by question asking and mimicry. We conduct a laboratory experiment with student teams working on a hidden profile decision-making task and measure question asking through behavioural coding and mimicry with motion sensors. Results show that the effect of participative leadership on decision quality is mediated by question asking, and that the effect of participative leadership on leader evaluation as transformational is mediated by leaders’ behavioural mimicry and question asking. Under control of these micro-level behaviours, team decision quality and leader evaluations were unrelated

Social category salience moderates the effect of diversity faultlines on information elaboration

Faultlines—hypothetical dividing lines splitting a group into homogeneous subgroups based on the distribution of demographic attributes—are frequently assumed to be detrimental to group outcomes because they operationalize social categorizations. However, a literature review indicates that this is not always the case. We argue that diversity faultlines and social categorizations are not necessarily the same and that the effect of diversity faultlines is moderated by perceived social categorizations. To test this proposition, we assigned 172 participants to groups of four. Participant gender, bogus personality feedback, seating position, and colored cards were employed to create two diversity faultline conditions (weak and strong faultline). Groups worked on the Survive in the Desert task, and their interactions were coded with the discussion coding system (DCS). Social categorizations were elicited using a newly developed measure that requires participants to specify subjectively perceived salient categories. Participants stated many social categories that were unrelated to surface-level characteristics frequently employed in diversity research. In line with our hypotheses, social category salience moderated the effect of faultline strength on elaboration. Elaboration was most intense in strong faultline groups that had low levels of category salience. Elaboration was positively related to performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed