1. Study Purpose and Implications

This study was designed as an annual project to be conducted over a period of three years (2015-2017) in order to explore the structure, mechanism, and trends of corruption in Korean society and seek effective measures to prevent corruption. The project carried out this year, the first of its series, is of significance as preliminary research to build an appropriate research model to analyze the structure of corruption. The 2015 project aims to develop research methodology as an analyzing tool for the current status of corruption. Also, this study attempts to develop an explanatory model by combining white-collar criminology and organizational ecology for the analysis of corruption structure, which is hereafter referred to as the “perspective of organizational ecology on corruption.” In addition, this study looks into changes in concepts and patterns of corruption following rapidly changing society, and critically explores developments of corruption-related crimes over the last 20-30 years and a wide range of countermeasures implemented in the past. By analyzing corruption-reporting news articles and corruption cases of public agencies, this research investigates the current status of corruption, and suggests policy improvement plans through comparison analysis of anti- corruption policies of international agencies and other countries.

2. Main Contents and Research Methods

The purpose of this study is to grasp the structure of corruption in Korean society. The structure of corruption refers to an expanded structure of circulation that is formed through interaction between individuals, organization, and society (institutions and culture)-a mechanism that serves as a matrix for individual corruption cases to evolve or make a reverse circulation to organized or systemic corruption. In order to understand the structure, this study suggests new approaches: one is to approach corruption by setting an organization, as well as individuals, as a basic unit for explanation; and the other is to ascertain cause of macroscopic and microscopic corruption cases from the perspective of criminology. Furthermore, this research attempts to understand the concept of corruption as a social construct that changes and evolves, rather than being fixed, according to social development and the level of public awareness, and subsequently focus on changes in trends of corruption. Therefore, in this study, corruption is not limited to public posts but is understood as a comprehensive social phenomenon involving the private sector, and it is dealt with by considering corruption as the institutionalization of opportunistic behavior combining social, institutional factors and human choice, rather than seeing it as an ethical, cultural problem.
The main subject of the 2015 research is to develop a tool for analysis and research methodology to research the structure of corruption. To do this, the following three sub-tasks are conducted. First, in the Research of Occurrence Trend of Corruption Crime in Korean Society, key definitions of corruption are made; changes in the concept of corruption are explored; and major characteristics and patterns are examined through analysis of news articles reporting corruption cases over a period of the last 30 years.
Second, the Analysis of Mechanism and Changing Trends of Corruption Control deals with major trends and achievements of anti-corruption efforts of each government in Korea, examines Korea’s current status of corruption through comparison analysis of the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, and suggests new approaches to establish a new environment for the elimination of corruption.
Third, the Development of New Methodology for the Research of Corruption Structure looks into the following two major issues: (1) the examination of major theories on corruption crime, particularly conceptual and theoretical relevance with white-collar crime, along with main issues pointed out in preceding research results; and (2) the establishment of a model for theoretical elucidation of the structure of corruption based on organizational ecology and criminology.

3. Main Results of the Study

1) Critical Discussion on the Concept of Corruption

Considering a recent trend that the concept of corruption has expanded to involve private sector corruption, this study defines corruption as an act of abusing power and authority committed by entrusted individuals or groups in the public or private sector for personal gain directly or indirectly, betraying public trust on their not harming public interests.

2) The Conceptual, Theoretical Relevance between White-collar Crime and Corruption

White-collar crime is defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation,” and corruption can be said to fit into the category of white-collar crime.

3) Result of Network Analysis of the Trend of Research on Corruption in Korean Society

According to analysis, this study foundⅰ) academic focus on research of corruption transitioned from the public sector to the private sector including corporates and organizations, ⅱ) approaches and major concepts in research on corruption differ according to department, and ⅲ) following the 1997 financial crisis in Asia research interest shifted from analysis of the structure corruption to autonomous, ethical control.

4) Analysis Result of Major Statistics on Corruption

First, according to occurrence trends of corruption over the last 20-30 years, there have been consistent patterns of increase and decrease, which can be interpreted as a clean-up drive implemented by a new government with the aim of strengthening the power base in early days in office.
Second, private-sector corruption has occurred with an overwhelming 80-90 percent of the overall corruption crimes over the last 20 years, causing concerns over the resulting high social costs.
Third, as more stringent anti-corruption policies have been applied to local governments and public service-related organizations since the 2000s, petty corruption became the main target of inspection with less focus on grand corruption.
Fourth, public officials who came under suspicion of corruption have increased in number and scale over the last 20 years, but in practice legal treatments became lenient, which raises a question over the willingness and role of the judicial authorities to fight corruption.
Fifth, inner disciplinary action against misconduct of public officials was uated to be passive and lukewarm, and even if public officials were caught committing corruption, they ended up receiving lenient disciplinary measures such as reprimand.
Sixth, whistle blowing increased towards the end of presidency of Lee Myung-bak, which seems to be related to the fact that despite a vast array of anti-corruption policies, a number of corruption indexes showed a drastic decrease in his late years in office.

5) Analysis Result of The 2014 Best 100 News Selected by Journalists and Corruption Cases of Public Agencies

First, public-sector corruption and political corruption accounted for a large percentage of the whole corruption cases, and corruption committed in economic circles and civil society also recorded as many as occurrences.
Second, most corruption cases involved organizations with individuals’ corruption accounting for 31.9 percent and organizational one 68.1 percent, accentuating the need for making an organization an important unit in analyzing corruption.
Third, corruption in the private sector overrode those commited in the public sector, with the former accounting for 28.6 percent and the latter 26.9 percent, which shows the necessity for focusing on corporate corruption. Fourth, corruption cases were mainly committed by those in their high positions, but those in their middle and low positions showed comparatively even percents, indicating a high possibility that members in an organization were involved in corruption.
Fifth, bribery accounted for the most largest percent in types of corruption, but fraud has recently been increasing in corruption cases of public agencies.

6) Trend of Korean Anti-Corruption Policies and Achievement and Limit of Corruption-control Mechanism

First, each government in Korea has shown consistent interest in anticorruption policies, but because of the lack of perception on corruption and a comprehensive, anti-corruption system, it is hard to say that they showed a tremendous effectiveness in solving the problem of corruption.
Second, efforts were made to combat misconduct in office mainly driven by the administration, but they failed to expand to the overall society due to the lack of awareness and a comprehensive anti-corruption system.
Third, such lack of awareness and administration-driven efforts to fight corruption resulted in a low level of integrity and transparency uated by an international agency. International society has an expanded concept of corruption including the private sector as well as the public one, and it is making aggressive anti-corruption efforts by means of relevant laws and systems. However, discussion over above-mentioned issues have yet to be made in Korean society.

7) Implications of Anti-corruption Strategies of International Agencies and Society

First, OECD pointed out that key values for integrity should be sought in the perspectives of justice, equity, transparency, openness, accountability, and efficiency. To do this, a wide range of policies are required and public agencies should boost their capacity to implement them.
Second, anti-corruption strategies require a transition from post-control to pre-control. Instead of the traditional model of punishment-centered posterior control, the authorities should seek ways to develop pre-control strategies to combat corruption.
Third, a cooperative system involving the public and private sectors and civil society is required to fight corruption with greater effectiveness. Also, individuals should make an autonomous effort to prevent misconduct, while the corruption-combating target needs to expand to involve the private sector.

4. Conclusion: Necessity for New Approaches to Establish Anticorruption Environment

1) Trends and Characteristics of Corruption in Korean Society

First, the most noticeable change over a period of half a century it that social awareness on corruption has consistently evolved and expanded. The key value defining corruption transitioned from public concern to public interest (group interest) or fairness, which also shifted awareness on corruption from the public sector to the public-interest sector and to the private sector.
Second, anti-corruption policies implemented so far in Korean society were focused on petty corruption committed in the field of civil affair administration, and failed to contribute to the elimination of power-elated and political corruption. In particular, corruption-related scandals involving those in their high social positions have never showed sighs of abating, but the prosecution rate has been on the decrease, raising suspicion that the structure of corruption in Korean society has already been committed systematically.
Third, all kinds of corruption-related indexes predict that in the future, corruption will abound in the private sector, and organization-driven corruptive acts will prevail rather than those committed by individuals.
Therefore, anti-corruption policies are in need in order to fight ever-increasing corporate corruption.

2) Need for a Research Model for the Analysis of Corruption Structure

In research on corruption, an organization should be considered as a unit of explanation or analysis, but the theoretical framework should be set based on the relations with society considered as a higher unit and individuals a lower unit. Society serves as an environment for an organization, and a host of organizations compete or cooperate in the environment. This can be referred to as the perspective of organizational ecology because the occurrence of a corruptive act is analyzed based on such a hierarchy.

3) Sustainable Foundation for Anti-corruption and Transparency and Strategy for the Establishment

New approaches are required to establish the foundation for anti-corruption policies in the future.

First, culture of integrity should be established in society as a vehicle for constructing a sustainable foundation of anti-corruption. It is required to break down unreasonable traditional practice through systemic responses to corruption, and to internalize culture of integrity that is a pre-control measure in the long term by boosting values of integrity in officialdom.
Second, considering that countries with value-centered, ethical strategies reported a higher level of integrity than their counterparts with focus on observing regulations, Korea needs a paradigm shift to an approach of value-centered, anti-corruption measures. Anti-corruption effort lead to punishment against misconduct, while integrity refers to an understanding of values of fairness, transparency, and responsibility and requires motivation to put them in practice.
Third, Korean society should come up with aggressive countermeasures against corruption committed in the private sector, considering an international trend that corruption-control efforts have expanded to the private sector. Moral hazard and unfair practice rampant in the private sector will result in undermining the foundation of community ethics in Korean society. Therefore, the authorities should prepare anti-corruption measures for the private sector, as well as the public sector. In addition, as corruption is hard to overcome only with efforts from the public sector, the cooperation from the private sector is also in need.