156 Part 2 The Cultural Environment of Global Markets Rank Country Score 1 Netherlands 8.8 1 Switzerland 8.8 3 Belgium 8.7 4 Germany 8.6 4 Japan 8.6 6 Australia 8.5 6 Canada 8.5 8 Singapore 8.3 8 United Kingdom 8.3 10 United States 8.1 11 France 8.0 11 Spain 8.0 13 South Korea 7.9 14 Brazil 7.7 15 Hong Kong 7.6 15 Italy 7.6 15 Malaysia 7.6 15 South Africa 7.6 19 Taiwan 7.5 19 India 7.5 19 Turkey 7.5 22 Saudi Arabia 7.4 23 Argentina 7.3 23 United Arab Emirates 7.3 25 Indonesia 7.1 26 Mexico 7.0 27 China 6.5 28 Russia 6.1 *Based on responses to questions such as: In the business sectors with which you are most familiar, please indicate how likely companies from the following countries are to pay or offer bribes to win or retain business in this country (respondent’s country of residence). is reported in Exhibit 5.6 in its entirety. TI is very emphatic that its intent is not to expose villains and cast blame but to raise public awareness that will lead to constructive action. As one would expect, those countries receiving low scores are not pleased; however, the effect has been to raise public ire and debates in parliaments around the world—exactly the goal of TI. The most notable data in the in TI’s CPI rankings are those allowing the comparison of the positions of the United States and Japan over the years. In the 1998 CPI rankings, the United States was #17 and Japan #25. In Exhibit 5.5, you will observe that now the United States is #19 and Japan is #18. In the 2011 index, the United States was #24! The analysts at TI warn that because the countries considered and the survey data used vary from year to year, making longitudinal comparisons are problematic. However, it is our opinion that Japan should be lauded for improving its record on corruption during the last decade. We cannot say the same for the United States, which took a large dip in the last few years and still has not returned completely to its 1998 level. Indeed, Japan’s successes in reducing corruption in its business system are all the more remarkable because of its relationship-oriented culture, which would be predicted by many to favor bribery. Finally, the critics are strangely mute regarding the influence of outside pres-sure, in the form of the aforementioned OECD antibribery convention, which Japan joined in 1999 (the United States also joined the OECD convention in 1999). Long-time observers argue that major changes within Japan often result from such outside influences. Thus, the years 1999–2001 appear to represent the key turning point in Japan’s fight against corruption. Transparency International’s CPI is also proving useful in academic studies of the causes and consequences of bribery. Completely consistent with our discussion of the origins and elements of culture in Chapter 4 (see Exhibit 4.4), higher levels of bribery have been per-ceived in low-income nations and nations with a communist past, both aspects of the political Exhibit 5.6 Transparency International Bribe Payers Index 2011* The Index ranks the likelihood of companies from 28 leading economies to win business abroad by paying bribes—higher scores correspond to perceived lower levels of bribe paying internationally. Source: Bribe Payers Index 2011, www.transparency.org. Reprinted from Bribe Payers Index. Copyright © 2011, Transparency International: the global coalition against corruption. Used with permission. For more information, visit http://www.transparency.org.
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