Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 Corruption in Public Administration Units and Organizational Measures to Prevent and Fight Corruption1 Andrejka Mevc1, Milan Pagon2 1Splitska ulica 46, 3320 Velenje, m.mevc@siol.net 2University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Kidri~eva cesta 55a, 4000 Kranj milan.pagon@fov.uni-mb.si This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the attitudes of civil servants in public administration units in Slovenia regarding corruption at work. The results show that civil servants employed in public administration units take corruption seriously. The employees’ perceptions of corruption and their willingness to report the offender are closely connected to their opinion on how others - their colleagues - perceive it (i.e., how serious they find corruption and whether they are willing to report the offender). There are important gender differences regarding the perceptions of corruption, as well as differences in the function they have and their membership in organizational units. The authors conclude that it is necessary to develop and strengthen the feelings of the employees’ security and increase the link between perceiving corruption and one’s own judgment of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour, as well as to decrease the tolerance regarding corruption. Key words: administrative corruption, corruptive behaviour, code of silence, anticorruptive measures, offender, management, civil servant, public administration unit. 1 Introduction The phenomenon of corruption is present in Slovenia. According to some authors (e.g., Tratnik Volasko, 1999), Slovenia is considered to be one of the less corrupted Eastern European countries. Nevertheless, the question remains: is that consistent with the truth? There have been very few research studies done in the field of corruptive behaviour and there have been even fewer studies conducted with regard to administrative corruption. Corruption in Slovenia needs to be researched more and in detail and any possible defects and deficiencies in political, economic, legal and other systems should be determined. Administrative corruption is not the problem of an individual - it is an organizational problem for each and any organization. The management needs to be trained and qualified in order to take correct preventive measures so that corruptive behaviour does not occur and, if it has occurred, they need to be efficient in dealing with the consequences. The definition of the term corruption differs considerably around the world. Some researchers consider it in a broader and others in a narrower sense. It is the same when it comes to considering the term corruption among countries. That is why it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare the data of different countries and their research. Great caution is needed when it comes to such comparison and it is important to determine what the term corruption actually means when we present certain data. In the Civil law convention on corruption, the term corruption is defined as a »direct or indirect claim, offering, gift or acceptance of a bribe or any other illicit benefit or promise which disturbs the correct performance a duty or treatment required by the receiver of the bribe, illicit benefit or a promise.« (2003, p. 634). Haberfeld, Kutnjak Ivkovich, Klockars and Pagon (1999) and Pagon and Lobnikar (2001) stress that corruption needs to be understood in its original, natural meaning (depravity, perversity, dishonesty). Authors Haberfeld et al. state that corruption is very difficult to detect and is even more difficult to prove. It is characteristic of a corruptive relationship that there is no impaired party that would feel the need to report an offence. That is why detecting and adducing evidence to prove corruption is an extremely difficult task. In this article, corruption is understood as defined in the Civil law convention on corruption (2003). 1 The article is based on the master’s degree thesis, which was successfully defended by Andrejka Mevc under the supervision of Dr. Milan Pagon at the Faculty for Organizational Sciences of the University of Maribor. 99 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 Electronic databases were checked (PsyicINFO Database, NCJRS Abstracts Database, Academic Search Premier Database, Social Science Research Database) but studies dealing with the narrow topic of administrative corruption on a local level or are comparable with administrative corruption in public administration units were not found. There are no studies we know of dealing with corruption in public administration units in Slovenia. Jager (2001) states there were three known international victimological studies (1992,1997 and 2001), an international research on ethics in business and three studies dealing with corruption in the police force.2 All of them were carried out between 1992 and 2002. In the Slovenian police force, the factors of deviant, antisocial behaviour were researched by Lobnikar, Pagon, Duffy and Ganster (2000) as well as Lobnikar, Pagon and Ovsenik (2004). In their papers, they did not deal with directly corruptive behaviour but with broader forms of deviant behaviour on the part of Slovenian police officers: deviant behaviour towards other employees, deviant behaviour to gain benefits for themselves and deviant behaviour towards organizational rules, as well as the frequency and causes of violence and three forms of aggressive behaviour at work in Slovenian police force: aggression, violence and revenge. The results show that deviant behaviour is influenced by interpersonal and organizational factors, followed by the personal characteristics of individuals and, at the lowest level of the scale, are demographic factors of the employees. According to gender, malicious rumours about females spread twice as much as those about males. General studies on corruption in the private sector were financed by the previous Office for the prevention of corruption of the Republic of Slovenia and the present Committee for the prevention of corruption. Public opinion studies on corruption have regularly been carried out over the last five years, since 2002 (University of Ljubljana, Faculty for social sciences - Institute for social sciences, the Centre for public opinion and mass communication, 2002, 2003,2004 and 2006, Aragon d.o.o., 2006). Accepting a bribe in public services is shown as »the utmost visible and characteristic« pointer of corruption. The opinion on corruption in public services is mainly formed by media reports and, to a small extent, from personal experience with corruption. Throughout the years, the answers point to a relatively low spread of corruption in Slovenia but it tells us nothing about the relative corruption in particular segments and it does not consider the »systematic exclu-siveness« of the majority of respondents. Evaluation of the spread of corruption has been based on the media. Studies were carried out on corruption in the private sector (GfK Gral-Iteo, market studies d.o.o., 2002, 2004 and 2006). According to the Slovenian economists who took part in the research, there was evidently less corruptive behaviour in 2006 than in 2002. The opinion on corruption is based in general on small talk, as well as on the media and various sources. The situation in the Slovenian economy has improved in comparison with two other measurements / surveys. The majority of companies believe that joining the European Union did not bring major changes for companies. They strongly believe that the situation of the particular branches has neither improved or deteriorated. According to the data from the research, corruption does not present such a significant problem as it did in 2004. Compared to the opinion from the research, the situation has improved and the public opinion of the range of corruption and bribe-taking in public services has also improved. Conviction of corruption among civil servants is not based on the media as in the previous studies, but more on experiences of those who the people questioned trust. The stated company (GfK Gral-Iteo, market research d.o.o., 2001 and 2004) did the research on corruption in Eastern and Central European countries. Also, in 2002, 2003, Transparency International carried out international victimological studies in Slovenia. The results of the studies (Pavlovi}, 1998, Pavlovi}, 1999a, Pavlovi}, 1999b, Pavlovi}, 1999c, Urad vlade RS za statistiko, 1998) show that criminality in Slovenia ranges around the European average. Data on the corruptibility of officials exceeds the European average but they do not reach the level that would justify the agitation present in the media. Comparing the level of victimization and corruption, we have a slightly worse position than the other developed European countries but a better one compared to other transitory states in Central and Eastern Europe. Slovenian entrepreneurs know the basic ethical values that should take place in a free market but, being under economic and everyday pressure, they tend to use unethical »short cuts«. The problem of ethical treatment of management from the social psychological and com-municological point of view is dealt with in the paper by Pagon and Lobnikar. They have found out that managers take wrong notions of the sense and use of ethics, the prevailing philosophical attitude towards the issues of ethics, lack of ethics education and training, and exaggerated emphasis on macro-ethical issues. Studies of police force corruption show that there are certain similarities and differences among the countries involved in the research. In general, American police officers showed less tolerance towards corruptive behaviour in comparison to Slovenian, Polish and Croatian police officers. (Haberfeld et al.) 2 Method 2.1 The aim of the research The aim of the research was to establish how seriously civil servants in public administration units in Slovenia take 2The researche were carried out by researchers Haberfeld and coauthors; Kutnjak Ivkovich, Klockars, Lobnikar, & Pagon (2000); Kut-njak Ivkovich, Pagon, Klockars, & Lobnikar (2002). They researched police force corruption. 100 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 administrative corruption, the level of acquaintance with organizational regulations that deal with corruption, if there is a silence code and how strong it is in protecting civil servants who violate regulations and what the standpoints of civil servants are towards disciplinary measures in the workplace. On the basis of our findings, we suggest organizational measures to prevent and fight corruption in public administration units. 2.2 The sample In our research we surveyed a population of civil servants from Slovenian public administration units. The sample consisted of 351 civil servants. The majority was represen- ted by women (almost 82.0%) with secondary, high vocational or university education (together, 74.4% of those questioned) employed in administrative or technical posts (together, 84.9% of those questioned). On average, the respondents were middle aged (the average age was 42.7 years), with average work experience of 21 years and 15,5 years experience in public administration. The sample consisted of civil servants from 18 public administration units in Slovenia. 2.3 Instruments A questionnaire was used in the research. We made use of a questionnaire used previously by Haberfeld et al. Casel A member of the exam committee works in his free time as a driving instructor on the basis of a work contract in a driving school but not in the area of his exam centre. He only drives in his free time and never when he is at work. Case 2 A civil servant in charge of economy routinely accepts perfume, coffee, a shawl, a candy box, a free snack, a bunch of flowers or other presents of low value from customers in the course of the proceedings. She never demands these presents and is careful not to abuse the generosity of people who bring the presents. Case 3 In the course of a car maintenance check up, a car mechanic civil servant finds a few minor irregularities. He agrees with the owner of the car to ignore them in the record. In return, he receives a sum of money that amounts his daily pay. Case 4 A civil servant responsible for public order is very popular in the area of a public administration unit where he works. Customers bring him presents of lower and higher value for Christmas, new year (calendars, notebooks, pens, food, drinks, even an expensive watch, necklace etc.) Case 5 A civil servant in charge of procedures referring to lost and found objects has among these objects a watch worth two days pay. He doesn't show the watch in the public auction but takes it home instead. Case 6 A referee for driving licences finds out that his friend who is employed in a tourist agency does not have a valid medical certificate which is needed to renew a driving licence. He urgently needs to go on a business trip and the referee extends his driving licence. In return, the referee gets a free weekend for two on the coast within this tourist agency. Case 7 A civil servant in the reception office gets paid a tax of 5.000,00 SIT by a customer who forgets to take the receipt and leaves it on the desk. A referee takes the receipt and does not register it at the end of the day. She keeps the money and destroys the receipt. Case 8 A civil servant responsible for building permits makes a deal with an architect that he would direct the customers to him and in return he would get 5% of the value of each elaboration. Case 9 A head civil servant demands that an employee grants a customer a licence for a gun even though the customer does not comply with the required conditions to obtain a licence. In return the employee gets a pay rise of 10%. Evaluate the work of the SUPERIOR civil servant. Case 10 A civil servant granting licences for the usage of properties is very popular and respected at work for his kindness, experiences and excellent knowledge of procedures and regulations. A director can rely on him and trusts him, so he has full power even when it comes to decision making in civil administration procedure. He does his job autonomously and independently. There is a rumour though among the colleagues that sometimes he makes an exception and grants a permit to a customer who does not fulfil all the required conditions. In return he receives money or some other material benefit. There is no evidence that the rumour is consistent with the truth. A colleague later discovers that the referee really does grant licences in cases when conditions are not fulfilled. A superior knows nothing about it. The colleague keeps quiet and says nothing about what he has discovered. He does not inform the superior of his discovery. Figure 1: Cases, used in the questionnaire 101 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 (1999). The questionnaire is comprised of a variety of factors - variables that we presumed were related to the opinions of civil servants referring to administrative corruption. The factors were classified as general and specific. The general factors are: ¦ membership of the inner organizational unit, ¦ gender, ¦ age, ¦ length of work experience, ¦ length of work in public administration, ¦ function at work, ¦ education. The special factors are: ¦ inner perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviours, ¦ perception of the seriousness of the corruptive behaviour of others (colleagues), ¦ opinion on violating organizational rules, ¦ opinion on the penalty deserved, ¦ opinion on the actual penalties, ¦ readiness to report an offender ¦ opinion on the readiness of others (colleagues) to report an offender. The questionnaire presents 10 cases or scenarios (Figure 1). Respondents were questioned on what they thought and how they felt about the scenarios. The cases refer to the profitable activities of civil servants in their free time, accepting gifts, accepting a bribe, theft, taking provisions, the corruptive behaviour of superiors, the existence of a code of silence. In the second part of the questionnaire, we stated seven Likart type questions with five level scales and the respondents placed their answer on the scale between the two extremes. 2.4 Procedure The questionnaire was tested on a sample of civil servants from the public administration unit in Velenje. The survey was carried out in public administration units in: Celje, Dom`ale, Jesenice, Kamnik, Krško, Ljutomer, Maribor, Mozirje, Murska Sobota, Novo mesto, Pesnica pri Mariboru, Radovljica, Ravne na Koroškem, Slovenska Bistrica, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenske Konjice, Šentjur pri Celju and @alec. The questionnaires were delivered personally and the superiors distributed them among the civil servants. Later, the questionnaires were returned by mail. For some units, the questionnaires were sent by mail and the subsequent procedure was the same as in the other cases. 3 Results 3. 1 Personal perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour It was discovered that civil servants are in general quite tolerant of accepting gifts and free snacks, but they estimate that other behaviour were either serious (perfor- ming profitable activities, new year gifts) or extremely serious (bribes, theft, wrongdoings on the part of the superior, not taking prompt measures against the offender). The majority of civil servants (92.4 %) believe that the wrongdoings of the superior belong among the extremely serious corruptive behaviour (case 9 in figure 1).The majority of the respondents take corruption very seriously. The perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour depends on the respondent’s age and their experience in the work post. The older the respondent, the more seriously he perceives corruptive behaviour. Even though the years of work experience and the length of work experience in public administration are related, the respondent’s perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour is not directly linked to the length of his work experience in public administration. A connection among the factors is shown in Table 1. The respondent’s estimation of the seriousness of behaviour is connected to all the special factors included in the questionnaire. The more serious the perception of the behaviour, the more serious is the perception of the behaviour as seen by others (colleagues). If the violation of the rules is considered a serious one, then the penalty should be more severe and, in fact, the penalty really is a more severe one. Then the employees are willing to report an offender. The highest correlation is the one between the respondent’s perception of seriousness of behaviour and their opinion on the perception of the seriousness of the behaviour of others (colleagues). Regressive analysis shows that the connection between the respondent’s perceptions of the seriousness of behaviour only explains 2% of the variance of their own willingness to report an offender, for all the cases together. The data is shown in table 2. 3.2 Perception of the willingness to report the offender On average, the willingness to report an offender is placed rather low (3.03). Behaviours that are seen as less serious are less likely to be reported than the behaviours that are meant to be more serious. On average, the least willingness to report an offender is shown for an offender who accepts free snacks and gifts, while a bit more willingness is shown towards offenders who perform some profitable activities and considerably more towards the offender who accepts presents for New Year or Christmas. The majority of respondents would report an offender who stole money and approximately the same amount would report a corrupt superior officer. About a fifth or a third of the respondents would not report an offender. Older and more experienced respondents are more likely to report an offender. Men are more likely to report an offender than women. Regarding the respondent’s function, management is more willing to report an offender in comparison with other employees, regardless of their function. Civil servants are no more willing to report an offender than the technical employees. 102 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 Table 1: Pearson’s correlation coefficient among respondent’s evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and other factors VARIABLE Personal evaluation of seriousness of behaviour r P age 0.18 0.0022 length of work experience 0.15 0.0077 opinion of colleague's evaluation of seriousness of behaviour 0.72 < .0001 violating organizational rules 0.51 < .0001 deserved penalty 0.38 < .0001 actual punishment 0.14 0.0260 readiness to report an offender 0.42 < .0001 opinion on a co-worker's readiness to report an offender 0.25 < .0001 The more serious the respondents feel about the behaviour, the more likely it is that the respondents will report the offender if their behaviour shows violating the rules. They feel that an offender deserves a more severe punishment and he would actually get a more severe one. The more the respondents feel their colleagues perceive certain behaviour as a serious one, the more they are likely to report an offender and they also feel that their colleagues would be more willing to report an offender. The respondents’ willingness to report an offender is related most to their perception of whether their colleagues are willing to report an offender and it is also significantly connected to their opinion on how seriously their colleagues perceive the behaviour. The respondents’ perception of the seriousness of behaviour is placed lower, in the second position, and the opinion that certain behaviour is an offence is much lower. According to regression analysis, the strongest factor by far is the one that can explain almost half (43 %) of the variance of one’s willingness to report an offender looked upon all cases together - the opinion of the respondents on their colleagues’ willingness to report an offender. If the respondent believes that the colleagues are ready to report an offender, there is a stronger possibility that they will report an offender themselves. Other factors that also influence the respondent’s willingness to report an offender are: the respondent’s gender, opinion on the offender’s deserved penalty, respondent’s age and education, opinion on breaking organizational rules, the respondent’s own perception of the seriousness of the behaviour of colleagues and the membership of the inner organizational unit. Females are less ready to report an offender than males. Using regression analysis we found out, that gender can explain an additional 5% of variance in respondent’s willingness. All these factors can explain 61% of the variance of respondent’s willingness to report an offender. The data can be seen in Table 2. It is important to recognize that changing one factor necessarily means changing the other factors as they are strongly correlated. The more serious the respondents feel about the seriousness of the behaviour, the more difficult it gets to explain the differences in their willingness to report an offender on the base of their own estimation of the seriousness of the behaviour. Just the opposite would be expected and logical. 4 Discussion The results show a low level of integrity in civil servants. If integrity was at a higher level, the respondent’s personal perception of seriousness of behaviour should be Table 2: The results of regression analysis for the dependent variable »Respondent’s own willingness to report an offender« for all cases together. No. VARIABLE AR2 R2 F P 1. judgement on colleague's willingness to report an offender 0,43 0,43 151,72 < ,0001 2. gender 0,05 0,48 18,16 < ,0001 3. judgement on the offender's deserved penalty 0,04 0,52 14,95 0,0001 4. age 0,02 0,54 8,91 0,0032 5. education 0,02 0,56 8,00 0,0052 6. Judgement on breaking organizational rules 0,01 0,57 6,75 0,0101 7. evaluation of the seriousness of the behaviour 0,02 0,59 9,09 0,0029 8. judgement on the seriousness of colleagues 0,01 0,60 5,09 0,0251 9. Inner organizational unit 0,01 0,61 3,64 0,0580 103 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 strongly linked both to respondent’s opinion whether behaviour represents breaking the rules and to their own willingness to report an offender. In our opinion, working with human resources in public administration lacks directions to help build up an evaluation system and the integrity of each civil servant. In the future, special attention should be paid to the integrity of the employees in public administration units. We determined there is a low level of willingness to report an offender among civil servants in public administration units. It is most likely that this is due to a code of silence. Further studies should confirm the existence of a code of silence and, if it exists, the reasons for it should be stated. A higher level of willingness to report an offender among older respondents is connected to a perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour. Younger respondents perceive corruptive behaviour in a milder way in comparison with older respondents, so it is understandable that they are less willing to report an offender. Further studies are needed to define the reasons for the differing perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviours among older and younger respondents. A higher level of willingness to report an offender within managing personnel arises, in our opinion, from the nature and content of the management work. Leading and controlling functions are more evident in management than in any other function. In our opinion, the basic reason for the low level of willingness to report an offender among civil servants is the feeling of safety. Employees do not feel safe and protected enough to dare report offenders. There are several possible reasons for that. In our opinion, they fear that the legal system (organizational rules) does not enable efficient protection. Maybe employees do not trust their superiors. They may have had bad experience. Each individual who needs to make their own decision whether to report an offender or not, weighs reasons for and against the reporting. The decision depends on the reasons that prevail. Employees who report an offender should be protected from revenge, which could be done by creating a secure environment. At the same time, measures should be provided that have a positive and stimulative effect so that it would be easier to make the decision to report an offender. We found out that women are less willing to report an offender than men. If we want to heighten the willingness to report offenders, we need to pay special attention to the female population. It is extremely difficult to compare these results with the results of the other studies presented in the Introduction because the research is methodologically different and contains a different sample etc. We believe that the perception of corruption among civil servants in public administrative units is similar in Slovenia and the results of this research confirmed the cognition of previous studies and may serve as their supplement. Comparing the standpoints of police officers and civil servants in public administration units would be inappropriate or, at least, very difficult because the nature of work is completely different. Appropriate measures can improve the willingness of employees to report offenders. Pagon and Lobnikar (op. cit.) state that within an organization an environment needs to be created that stimulates integrity and professional culture, which is not tolerant towards corruption. Among the measures to achieve this, the authors state: Appropriate and transparent work with people. Employees need to have the feeling that they are treated honestly. Honesty can be ensured by fair relations among employees, clear and unbiased standards of work, the same for everybody and by appropriate solutions of conflict situations. The management’s and director’s decision making should be transparent, clear and unambiguous. That goes for the human resource policy, systematiza-tion, transference of civil servants, stimulative bonuses and other human resource measures. Evaluation and lessening the risk for corruptive behaviour. We can change specific work procedures in such a way as to estimate a corruption risk and try to lessen it, especially with those civil servants who belong to an at risk group. We discovered that an at risk group in public administration units consists of younger employees, employees with fewer years of work experience, civil servants and technical staff. Further studies are needed to define risk groups in each public administration unit. The basic aim of our studies is to offer help and guidance and should by no means impose penalty measures. Analysis of risk is recommended to evaluate and lessen corruptive risk. The aim of such analysis is to uncover dangerous or »weak« points that could cause and stimulate corruption. It is evident from experience that corruption exists at points where outside contacts are needed (ex. Contact with customers, suppliers, expert opinions, translating services and field inspections) and, in cases of decision making, where third persons could be in a better or worse position (ex. the delivery of public orders). An analysis of risk presents the basis to foresee practical measures and control mechanisms to locate dangerous areas and neutralize “weak” points. The attitudes of the highest public administration management and setting a positive example on the part of the public administration management. The head and other leading staff should take clear standpoints concerning occurrences of corruption and they should inform subordinates and citizens about it. But this is still insufficient. Even in specific cases, one should consistently keep one’s word. Consistent fight against corruption is the best example for co-workers. Principles of taking measures in occurrences of corruption. Public administration units should elaborate the principles of taking measures for the employees in cases of corruption (possibly concrete ones). Principles should be written and easily accessible by any employee in a public administration unit. Grounds have been stated on the state level with new legislation. We believe that public administration units should define in their inner acts, specifi- 104 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 cally and concretely, how the employees are expected to act in different cases of corruption. The policy needs to be based on zero tolerance. (Pagon & Lobnikar, op. cit.). Permanent anticorruption education and training. It is extremely important to introduce an employee into the work and all other training, where the employees are acquainted with administrative ethics, code of acting for civil servants and other acts that regulate this field. Regulations should be accepted and signed by every employee when they take up work in a public administration unit and the head should make this perfectly clear to them. In so doing, we ensure the awareness and sensibility of the employees. Anticorruption recommendations should be delivered regularly in obligatory seminars and training, at official discussions and meetings, personal discussions etc. Special attention should be paid to learning organizational policy and the procedures referring to deviant behaviour. Pagon stresses (Pagon & Lobnikar, op. cit.; summarized after Pagon, 2000) that ethical doings and personal integrity represent the strongest weapons against all kinds of deviation. Plan of integrity. The plan of integrity elaborated by public administration units is defined by the law for the prevention of corruption (2004) and these are »measures of a legal and factual nature that prevent and suppress the possibilities for the formation and development of corruption in an organ«. The plan estimates factual exposure to corruption, describes work procedures and decision making procedures. They try to define the exposed posts where there is a higher possibility for the occurrence of corruption and certain mechanisms are provided to prevent corruption and plan improvements. To lower the tolerance limits of citizens. If citizens start to take administrative corruption as a norm, then it is almost impossible to eradicate it. That is why the public must be made sure that cases of corruption in public administrative units are exceptions and that those civil servants in public administration units disapprove and severely penalize them. At the same time, they need to know that bribing or an attempt to bribe a civil servant is a criminal offence. Pagon and Lobnikar (op. cit.) suggest, that these measures should be taken with a great deal of precaution and inner and outer activities in the media should be well executed. Brochures for employees and citizens could be prepared where it would be clearly stated that the civil servant who accepts a bribe is a criminal who deserves severe criminal penalties and disciplinary reprimands. Inner preventive measures. Preventive measures are not enough by far to prevent the occurrence of corruption. Inner preventive measures are directed towards detecting, uncovering and punishing employees who violate the regulations. This assignment can be performed by administrative inspectors, the managing staff in public administrative units - administrative managers or other controlling mechanisms. The results clearly indicate that the problem of corruption in public administrative units should be dealt with most seriously and in a complex way. The measures must be ensured and carried out in all segments of a state and in society in general. This is the only way to fight and prevent corruption. 5 Conclusion Even though the majority of the employees take administrative corruption very seriously, there is a minority (about a fifth of the respondents) who are more tolerant towards cases of corruption. This group consists of younger employees or employees with fewer years of work experience. Older employees have stricter criteria and take corruptive deeds more seriously. The more seriously it is perceived by co-workers, the more seriously it is perceived by them and vice versa (factors are in the highest possible interdependence). According to regression analysis, the share of variance of one’s own evaluation of seriousness, which explains a variability in the willingness to report, is low. On average, the willingness of employees to report an offender is low. If employees perceive behaviour seriously, it is more likely they will report an offender. There is a strong probability that a code of silence exists and protects offenders. An offender is more likely to be reported by men than women, older employees rather than young ones, employees with more work experience rather than those with less work experience and employees in leading positions more than civil servants or technical posts. A low level of willingness to report an offender stems from the feeling of safety or threatening employees. Employees do not feel safe /protected enough to decide to report an offender in larger numbers. By means of regression analysis, it was found that the highest variance of one’s own willingness to report an offender is explained by the employee’s opinion on whether their colleagues are willing to report an offender (43%). If employees think their colleagues would report an offender, they are more willing to report an offender themselves and vice versa. All other factors can explicate a considerably lower variance of one’s own willingness to report an offender. These are the employee’s gender, their opinion on a deserved penalty, their age and education, their opinion on breaking rules, their own perception of the seriousness of behaviour, their opinion on a co-worker’s perception of the seriousness of behaviour and the employee’s membership in the inter-organizational unit. The most important finding in this research is that an employee’s personal perception of cases of corruption (a personal evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and a personal willingness to report an offender) is significantly connected to the opinions of employees on how the occurrences of corruption is perceived by others (their coworkers). We believe that the employee’s personal perception of cases of corruption should mostly be connected to one’s own evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour 105 Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 and one’s own evaluation of whether certain behaviour means breaking the rules and it should not depend on the opinions and perceptions of co-workers and their evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and their willingness to report an offender. This research into corruption in public administration units is an interdisciplinary one and the first in Slovenia. It was limited by a relatively small sample and based on the reports of employees. If we had a chance to actually observe how employees act and react, we may reach different conclusions. Nevertheless we believe that the research represents a contribution to understanding the occurrence of corruption in public administrative units and it suggests some organizational measures to improve the situation. It also represents a suitable starting point and basis for further studies in this field. 6 Literature Aragon, raziskovanje in na~rtovanje, d.o.o.. (2006). Stališ~a o korupciji 2005, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/filead-min/kpk.gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/Stali sca o korupciji 2005.pdf (29.4.2007). Civil law convention on corruption. Ur.l. RS, št. 8/2003 - Mednarodne pogodbe. GfK Gral-Iteo, tr`ne raziskave d.o.o. (2006). Raziskava o gospodarskem in poslovnem okolju, poslovni etiki in neuradnih pla~ilih na Slovenskem, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v slo veniji/GRAL KPK 06.pdf (29.4.2007). GfK Gral-Iteo, tr`ne raziskave d.o.o.. (2001). Korupcijska klima v srednje in vzhodnoevropskih dr`avah (leto 2001), available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Gral_Iteo_korupcij-ska_klima_2001.pdf (29.4.2007). GfK Gral-Iteo, tr`ne raziskave d.o.o.. (2004). Korupcijska klima v srednje in vzhodnoevropskih dr`avah (leto 2004), available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Gral_Iteo_korupcij-ska_klima_2004.pdf (29.4.2007). Haberfeld, M. R., Kutnjak Ivkovich, S., Klockars, C. B. & Pagon, M. (1999). Stališ~a policistov do disciplinskih ukrepov zaradi policijske korupcije: primerjava med Slovenijo, Hrvaško, Poljsko in Zdru`enimi dr`avami Amerike. 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B., Lobnikar, B. & Pagon, M. (2000). Police Integrity and the Code of Silence: A Case of the Slovenian Police Force. V G Meško, A. An`i~ et al. (Eds.), Corruption in Central and Eastern Europe at the Turn of Millenium (pp. 85-102). Ljubljana. Open Society Institute Slovenia. Kutnjak Ivkovi}, S., Pagon, M., Klockars, C. B., & Lobnikar, B. (2002). A Comparative View of Public Perceptions of Police Corruption. V M. Pagon (Ed.), Policing in Central and Eastern Europe: Deviance, Violence, and Victimization (pp. 297-310). Ljubljana. College of Police and Security Studies. Ninamedia, d.o.o. (2002). Raziskava o gospodarskem in poslovnem okolju, poslovni etiki in neuradnih pla~ilih na Slovenskem, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk. gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/ninamedia p orocilo 2002.pdf (29.4.2007). Pagon, M. & Lobnikar, B. (1996). Problem eti~nega ravnanja managementa: socialno-psihološki in komunikološki vidiki, Organizacija, 29: 201 - 206. 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Korupcija, Ljubljana, Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve,Urad za javno varnost, Slu`ba za analitiko, USS, Sektor za administracijo in grafi~ne zadeve. Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za dru`bene vede - Inštitut za dru`bene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in mno`i~nih komunikacij. (2002). Stališ~a o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/CRJMMK porocilo 2002.pdf (29.4.2007). Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za dru`bene vede - Inštitut za dru`bene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in mno`i~nih komunikacij. (2003). Stališ~a o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu- Organizacija, Volume 41 Research papers Number 3, May-June 2008 ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/CRJMMK_poroci-lo_2003.pdf (29.4.2007). Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2003). Stališča o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/CRJMMK poročilo 2004.pdf (29.4.2007). Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2003). Stališča o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Stalisca_o_korupci-ji_06.pdf (29.4.2007). Urad Vlade Republike Slovenije za statistiko. (1998). Rezultati raziskovanj: Kriminaliteta 1997 - Crime 1997:97 - 111. Zakon o preprečevanju korupcije. Ur.l. RS, št. 2/2004, 92/2005 -sklep US, 97/2005 - odi. US in 100/2005 - sklep US. Andrejka Mevc graduated in 1996 from University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Sociology, Political Sciences and Journalism. She was granted a Prešern prize for her thesis and obtained an MSc degree in information sciences from the Universe of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences in 2005. She was first employed in Municipality of Velenje, department of defence. Since 1995, she has been employed in the public administration unit in Velenje as a Head of the Department for inner administrative affairs. Milan Pagon, Doctor of Organizational Sciences and Doctor of Management, is Dean and Professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Maribor. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters. His main research interests are in the area of behaviour in organizations, especially social undermining, conflict, integrity, corruption and deviant behaviour. Korupcija v upravnih enotah in organizacijski ukrepi za njeno preprečevanje V prispevku so predstavljeni rezultati raziskave, v kateri sta avtorja ugotavljala stališ~a javnih uslu`bencev, zaposlenih v upravnih enotah v Sloveniji, o pojavih korupcije na delovnem mestu. Uslu`benci v upravnih enotah v povpre~ju jemljejo pojave korupcije resno. Uslu`ben~evo lastno do`ivljanje pojavov korupcije in pripravljenost prijaviti kršitelja je v najtesnejši medsebojni povezanosti z njegovim mnenjem o tem, kako pojave korupcije do`ivljajo drugi - njegovi sodelavci (kako resno jemljejo pojave korupcije sodelavci, ali so sodelavci pripravljeni prijaviti kršitelja itd.). Med uslu`benci obstajajo pomembne razlike v do`ivljanju pojavov korupcije glede na spol, glede na funkcijo, ki jo uslu`benec opravlja, in glede na njegovo pripadnost notranji organizacijski enoti. Ključne besede: upravna korupcija, korupcijsko vedenje, pravilo mol~e~nosti, protikorupcijski ukrepi, kršitelj, javni uslu`benec, upravna enota. 107