ABSTRACT
 
This study compared the attitudes concerning bribery
in business transactions across the cultures of
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United States
of America.  Four sample groups, Indonesian (N =
53), Malaysian (N = 67), Thai (N = 46), and United
States (N=79), completed questionnaires involving
scenarios of whitemail bribery, kickbacks,
grease/lubrication payments, gifts and
entertainment.  The US and Malaysian groups were
found to have significantly higher scores than the
Thais for the overall bribery category. When the
elements of bribery were looked into, a significant
difference was found only for the whitemail bribery
in that the US were significantly higher than Thais
and Indonesians.  The means of all four groups,
however, exhibit a steady decrease as the elements
move from whitemail bribery to gifts. All four
cultures agreed on the acceptability of certain
types of gifts and entertainment.  Implications of
the results to value research and cross-cultural
research were noted.
 
INTRODUCTION
 
It is a disheartening experience for most Third
World nationals to periodically come across
statements in various journals concerning the
propensity of people in the Third World to practise
bribery or other unethical behaviour. It gives the
impression that these Third World nationals are
money gluttonous scoundrels that would grab anything
offered or take advantage of innocent visiting
western businessmen. Examples of such statements
are: To companies with high ethical standards, East
Asia can be disheartening. In booming Thailand,
payoffs have never been so pervasive while in
booming Republic of China, corruption among
government officials has fuelled popular protests
against the regime (Worthy, 1989).  Corruption and
bribery which are commonplace in developing
countries, do not have the negative connotations
that they have in the United States (Mendonsa,
1989).
 
Many companies have attempted to limit their
exposure to corruption by staffing foreign
subsidiaries with managers from the parent company
(Westervelt, 1989).
 
Bribery is encouraged in part by the style of
western business in developing countries, where
visiting executives are taken advantage of and are
impatient with local bureaucratic rules (Anonymous,
1988).
 
It was with these statements in mind that this study
was conducted to determine the validity of such
statements.
 
The word bribery, wang sogok in Indonesian, rasuah
in Malay, and sin bone in Thai, had its roots in the
age-old traditional practices of reciprocity.
Noonan (1984:3) mentioned this when he stated that,
"At the beginning there is no specific, unambiguous
word for bribe, no common terms designating and
denigrating the briber and the bribee, no noun
summing up the action to be shunned and naming it
bribery. There is only a range of reciprocities."
But as people progressed, laws and policies began to
delineate areas where certain acts of reciprocity
were illegal and immoral and these acts were
labelled bribery.
 
According to Berleant (1982) and Kaikati and Label
(1980), bribery was almost always one of the most
important concerns within the realm of business
ethics. Business people interviewed by Baumhart
(1961) ranked gifts, gratuities, and bribes as the
number one ethical problem on the list of major
ethical problems they most wanted to eliminate.
According to Jacoby, Nehemkis and Eells (1977),
bribery has a very long history and is a deeply
embedded human tendency. The extent of the history
of bribery is exemplified by the voluminous book of
John Noonan (1984).
 
Disagreements such as who or what is to blame for
unethical practices should be expected. England
(1975), McClelland (1961), Ronen (1986), and many
others have concluded that people from different
cultures vary in their values and ethical beliefs.
This widely held view, however, has been challenged
by the studies of Lee (1981), Izraeli (1988), and
Tsalikis and Nwachukwu (1988).  The conflicting
results obtained by researchers are exacerbated by a
dearth of empirical research in the field of
cross-cultural business ethics.
 
Most research that was done on bribery mainly
focused on instrumental issues, such as the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, corporate self-regulation and
problems of enforcement (Carson, 1985; Johnson,
1985; Kaikati and Label, 1980).  Among the research
done on bribery was the one conducted by Rosenberg
(1987).  Using what he called a "complex and
competitive computer-based business game", he found
no relationship between managers' Machiavellian
character traits and their decision behaviour in
situations involving bribery to foreign officials to
secure business.
 
Basche (1976) reporting a study conducted by the
Conference Board Record that surveyed 73 senior
international executives disclosed that nearly half
of the respondents believed that companies should
make payoffs in countries where such practices are
accepted and that nearly three-quarters stated that
they had faced demands by foreign officials for
unusual payments.
 
Commissioned by Pitney-Bowes, the Opinion Research
Corporation, surveying 531 top and middle managers,
found that eighteen per cent replied that a bribe
should be paid if it was the accepted practice in
the country, while nearly 50 per cent disagreed
(Allen, 1976).  In addition, 47 per cent indicated
that bribery was a part of the cost of doing
business in certain countries, while 32 per cent
believed that bribery was an established practice.
One intriguing discovery was that a resounding 92
per cent believed that legislation would not
effectively stop the practice.
 
In another study, Sales and Marketing Management,
conducting a survey of its 146 member leadership
panel, found 22 per cent responded "yes" to
"requests from abroad," while nearly 50 per cent
(49.2 per cent) responded "yes" to "requests from
inside the United States" on whether respondent or
anyone else in the respondent's company had ever
been asked to make illegal payments abroad or
domestically (Synder, 1976).  Most of the
respondents (81.4 per cent), however, responded that
they would not approve of such payments if they were
asked to do so.  In addition, a full 88.1 per cent
agreed that US salesmen would be at a disadvantage
if they were restricted from making payments abroad.
 
A more recent study by Longenecker, McKinney and
Moore (1988), compared the attitudes of US business
executives on international bribery, using the
scenario questionnaire technique. The researchers
found a lack of consensus among respondents
concerning the morality of payments.  Although 48.7
per cent were of the opinion that payments were
never acceptable, 32.5 per cent responded that
payments were sometimes acceptable, and 18.6 per
cent responded that payments were always acceptable.
Longenecker, McKinney and Moore (1988) concluded
that the attitudes of respondents concerning
questionable payments can be grouped into those of
moralists, pragmatists, cultural relativists, and
legalists.
 
THE STUDY AND METHODOLOGY
 
The Southeast Asian nations are among the fastest
economically growing areas of the world.  The
recognition of a promising future, and the
potentially important role in world trade, have
drawn the investments of MNCs to this region.
Cross-cultural studies involving these nations are
therefore needed to widen the knowledge and to help
expatriates understand this region's technology,
economic and natural human resources better.  The
scarcity of cross-cultural research, especially in
the area of ethics involving this region, further
stresses the obvious need for such information.
 
The objectives of this study were to determine
whether there are differences or similarities on the
attitudes of people from different cultures
concerning the practice of giving bribes and gifts.
The goal was to uncover clues on cross-cultural
differences, and to obtain a better understanding of
the dynamic process of value formation.  A research
question was formulated for the study:
 
To what extent do graduate business students from
the cultures of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and
the United States of America differ in their
attitudes towards the giving or receiving of bribes
or gifts in business?
 
Null statistical hypotheses were then developed in
order to answer these research questions. For
example: There are no significant differences among
the means of the kickback-rejecting scores of the
students from the cultures of Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, and the United States.
 
The definition of bribery used in this study was
offered by Almeder (1983:131), as the "...offering
of some good, service, or money to an appropriate
person for the purpose of securing a privileged and
favourable consideration (or purchase) of one's
product or corporate project." The elements making
up the total variable called "bribery" were as
follows: whitemail bribes, kickbacks,
grease/lubrication payments, gifts, and
entertainment.
 
Lubrication payments/grease payments were defined in
this study as payments of relatively small sums of
cash or other gifts or services made to low-ranking
officials. Whitemail bribes were defined as payments
of large sums of money involving elaborate systems
of concealing the payments, including false
accounting, fictitious book-keeping entries and
bogus documentation (Nehemkis, 1975:8).
 
Sampling
 
Graduate business students were chosen as
respondents for the study because of their ready
accessibility and their close present and future
connections with the international marketplace.  All
together, 245 usable responses comprising 79
Americans, 53 Indonesians, 67 Malaysians, and 46
Thais, were collected from major universities in
California. It should be noted that only ethnic
Malay students of the Muslim religion were chosen to
represent the Malaysian and Indonesian groups,
ethnic Thai from the Buddhist religion to represent
the Thai group, and Anglo-white students to
represent the US group.  Malaysian, Indonesian and
Thai students of Chinese and Indian descent were not
included in the study.
 
In addition to these respondents, about 32 Malay
graduate business students who had never been in the
United States of America, studying in uni-versities
in Malaysia were also asked to fill in the same
questionnaire. This made it possible to have a rough
control for differences in responses between
students who had been exposed to the culture of the
United States of America and those who had not.
 
Instrumentation
 
Researchers in business ethics have over-whelmingly
adopted the questionnaire approach.  Examples of
this approach are found in works by Baumhart (1961),
Becker and Fritzsche (1987), Brenner and Molander
(1977), Goodman and Crawford (1974), Schutte (1965),
and Rosen-berg (1987), to name a few.  Additionally,
the use of stories and/or scenarios in such
question- naires is widespread.  It is believed that
judgments on ethical issues cannot be accurately
made unless all background information concerning
the issue is known to the respondent. Martin
(1981_1982:19) stressed the importance of the
scenario technique when he stated that the scenario
technique "...appears to be the best technique
developed to date for probing ethical
understanding."
 
In developing the questions, the paradigms appearing
in the research questions were used.  The elements
making up the total variable called "bribery" are as
follows: whitemail bribes, kickbacks,
grease/lubrication payments, gifts, and
entertainment. For each element, questions were
developed to present a situation in which the
element involved was represented to have occurred.
 
Questions involve responses on a five-point Likert
scale on a continuum from "Agree Fully" to "Disagree
Fully," or from "Very Likely" to "Very Unlikely."
The scoring of the questionnaire was based on the
ethical rules developed by Baumhart.  Baumhart
graded his questions against norms which reflected
rules of civil law, honesty, responsibility to
refrain from appealing to weaknesses of the
consumer's character and the rights of others in a
democracy. Questions were scored from one to five,
and the highest score was assigned to the response
that most closely conformed to these rules.
 
Analysis of Data
 
One-way analyses of variance were conducted to
determine significant differences between the four
cultural groups with respect to their responses.
When required, Scheffe's t-tests were used to
deter-mine the particular groups which differed
signi-ficantly within a significant overall one-way
analysis of variance. The Students' t-tests were
used for all questions involving differences between
two groups.
 
RESULTS
 
A one-way ANOVA was completed to compare the
differences among the means of the overall bribery
rejecting scores of the four groups.  The US and
Malaysian bribery rejecting means were significantly
higher than the mean of the Thais.  Table 1 shows a 
summary of the ANOVA results in this study.
 
When the elements making up the variable bribery
such as whitemail bribes, kickbacks,
grease/lubrication payments, gifts, and
entertainment were analysed, a significant
difference was found only in the response to
whitemail bribe.  The US mean was significantly
higher than the means of the Indonesians and the
Thais. The means for all the four groups exhibit a
steady decrease from close to 4 to a low 2.4 as the
variables move from whitemail bribes, kickbacks,
grease/lubrication payments, entertainment, to
gifts.
 
The response involving entertainment was further
analysed into dining out in an inexpensive
restaurant, an expensive restaurant and going out
with a call girl.  The results indicated no
significant differences between the four cultures
for entertainment involving dining out either in an
expensive or inexpensive restaurant, with the means
of all four cultures accepting the practice.  When
the entertainment involved going out with a call
girl, however, all four cultures rejected the
practice, with the United States mean significantly
rejecting this practice more than Indonesian and
Thai students. Malaysian students also rejected this
practice significantly more than Thai students.
 
When the gifts were further analysed in the form of
two gifts, i.e. $200 pen or a $10,000 Rolex watch,
no significant differences among the four cultures
were found.  The means, however, denote a response
that generally approves of giving the $200 pen.
When the gift was a $10,000 Rolex watch, all four
cultures had mean scores between 3.2 and 3.6, which
denotes a response that generally disapproves of
giving the gift.
 
The response between Malaysians studying in Malaysia
and those studying in the United States were also
compared. No significant difference was found
between the means of the overall bribery rejecting
scores for the two groups (Refer to Table 2).
 
DISCUSSION
 
The mixed findings of this study do not conclusively
prove that US ethical standards are higher than
those of developing countries and that the nationals
of these countries condone bribery or other forms of
unethical practices.  Although the US means were
significantly higher than the Indonesians and Thais,
for the total bribery score and also for the
whitemail bribery variable, it was not significantly
different from the Malaysians.  In fact, the mean of
the Malaysians was even higher than the US in
rejecting bribery.  The means of the Indonesians and
the Thais were very close to neutral.
 
With the results in mind readers must be cautioned
when reading statements such as those appearing at
the beginning of this article and those by Jacoby et
al, (1977) and Lane and Simpson (1984) who contend
that corruption is prevalent in developing countries
and is seen as the normal way of life in these
countries.  It does not apply to all developing
countries.
 
An explanation for the higher mean obtained by
Malaysians might be that the Malaysian government
has placed heavy emphasis (for more than a decade)
on stamping out corruption, especially among civil
servants.  The Anti-Corruption Bureau of Malaysia
has done an outstanding job in controlling the
practice of bribery in Malaysia.  It has done so
well that it has instilled fear among the public of
the agency. These governmental actions might be
responsible for the generally higher scores among
the Malaysians.
 
Another reason might be due to religion. The
Malaysian sample, being all Muslims, with strict
religious upbringing, learn from the Quran of the
necessity to maintain high moral standards in their
daily lives. This explanation might hold true for
the Indonesian sample who are also Muslims.
However, the significantly lower scores obtained by
the Indonesians contradict this explanation. The
consistently lower scores displayed by the
Indonesians might be attributable to the way Islam
is practised in Indonesia. Unlike Malaysia, where
Islam is the official state religion, and where most
Muslims are considered religious, Indonesia has no
official state religion and the Indonesians'
practice of Islam may still be influenced by earlier
spiritual beliefs, a heritage of being
Spiritualists, and later embracing Hinduism and
Buddhism before converting to Islam. Similarly, the
lower means observed within the Thai sample might be
due to the Thais being Buddhists. Buddhism as a more
secular religion, supplemented by the difficult
living conditions and culture in which they were
brought up, might make the Thai Buddhists less
concerned about unethical questions.
 
One other reason for the difference may be due to
the economic conditions of the countries involved.
Comparisons between the per capita incomes of the
three Southeast Asian nations _ Malaysia at $2,581,
Indonesia at $624 and Thailand at $1,600, show the
discrepancy in living standards between the three
countries (The Asian Development Bank, 1992).  Thus,
better living conditions in Malaysia may also help
explain the higher means obtained by Malaysians as
compared with Indonesians and Thais.  Coming from
these highly competitive societies, the Indonesians
and the Thais may just be more practical in their
responses.
 
The fact that no significant differences were found,
and that all four cultures approved the practice of
dining out with clients in restaurants (regardless
of price), may indicate that this is an accepted and
common business practice.  However, accepting
entertainment to go out with a call girl is agreed
by all four cultures as unacceptable.  The
significantly lower mean obtained by the Thais
compared to the means of Americans and Malaysians
may be attributable to the lifestyle in Thailand,
where prostitution is a normal part of society.  The
significantly lower Indonesian mean, compared with
the American mean, however, cannot be so readily
explained.
 
It appears from the results of this study that all
the respondents, regardless of culture, agreed that
small gifts, in this case a $200 pen, are
acceptable.  This would mean that for executives
from the United States bearing gifts to these
Southeast Asian countries, and vice versa, only
gifts of nominal value such as a pen may be
considered acceptable. Anything more may carry a
negatively ingratiatory connotation. This finding is
consistent with the study conducted by La Forge
(1988) in which he found that most planners think it
is ethical to accept small gifts, but are undecided
when the gifts become more expensive.  Whatley
(1987) also found that over 50% of senior managers
report of receiving small gifts such as diaries,
calendars, and alcohol.
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 
Based on the results of this research, the
difference in attitude towards bribery in general
between the four cultures is quite inconclusive.
However, when bribery is broken down into whitemail
bribes, kickbacks, grease/lubrication payments,
gifts, and entertainment, the results were more
definite. Apart from whitemail bribery, there was a
clear understanding on all the other elements of
bribery on whether it is acceptable or not.  Apart
from this, the findings of this study also
demonstrate that the distinction between what gifts
or entertainment are acceptable and what are
unacceptable, is clearly agreed upon regardless of
culture. It is just the intensity of accepting or
rejecting by each culture that might be slightly
different.
 
These findings question the view that people from
developing countries condone bribery.  This puts to
question the numerous complaints voiced by
businessmen who conduct business in developing
countries, and who complain about the unethical
behaviour of host nationals.
 
The findings concerning gifts and entertainment will
be very helpful for cross-cultural encounters in
business dealings especially for multinational
corporations.  If possible, clear and concise
written guidelines on ethical conduct, especially
concerning gifts and entertainment, must be made a
part of the repertoire of all employees.  This not
only tends to ensure that employees behave
ethically, but also protects top management if an
unethical incident occurs.
 
Being exploratory in nature, the findings of this
study should be treated with caution. Several
limitations are inherent in the methodology of this
study. The method used to collect the data, a
questionnaire, may not yield data as accurately as
one would obtain by some other method such as
observations of actual behaviour. It is, however,
among the best and most practical means available.
Another limitation of this study was that the
respondents from Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia
are studying in the United States. Exposed to a
foreign culture, they may not reflect the attitudes
and values held by their typical "average"
country-men who have not been exposed to a foreign
culture. The finding that no significant differences
were found between Malaysian students in the United
States and Malaysian students in Malaysia, however,
tends to reduce the applicability of this
limitation.
 
Further detailed studies are needed before firm
conclusions can be reached in this sensitive field
of study. It is recommended that further research be
carried out replicating this study, concentrating on
other cultures, to determine conclusively the
similarities and differences of attitudes toward
bribery.
 
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