Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jan 24, 2010, 18:52 IST
Corruption is rampant in the Indian corporate sector and those at the top indulge the most in it, a majority of private employees surveyed have said.
"An average 86 per cent of respondents believe that corruption is a common phenomenon in corporate India. The acceptance towards corruption increases from lower management (83.4 per cent) to middle management (88.1 per cent) to senior management (90.2 per cent)," the survey by market research and consulting firm Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA) said.
The study by MDRA was conducted among 742 employees across the sectors in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad.
The employees surveyed have ranked monetary transaction as the most prevalent form of corruption while nepotism comes at bottom. Monetary transaction at 39.2 per cent is followed by exploitation at 17.1 per cent.
Besides, breach of trust and fraud are the other form of corruptions widely seen in the corporate world.
When it comes to activity-wise corruption, 36 per cent respondents said most frequent corruption is observed in recruitment process followed by promotion/ performance appraisal (24 per cent).
Further, 22 per cent said it occurs most in procurement and 17 per cent of them consider it is visible in project implementation, the survey said.
It seems that the recent scams and fiascoes have helped in strengthening people's distrust on accounting and auditing practices among Indian companies.
Overall 80 per cent respondent believed that it is common in corporate India to have a "window dressed balance sheet".
People who are working in IT-software and consulting sectors feel more strongly about prevalence of such practices in corporate world (88 per cent) as against those in telecom (67 per cent) and retail (69 per cent).
Yes, procurement corruption is passe. Recruitment corruption takes the cake these days. Create "dummy placement agencies" (your friends can lend their names), download CVs from MONSTER or NAUKRI, call the candidates and ask them to send updated CVs if they are interesyed. Presto, you have sourced candidates for your "client-company"........for every recruitment, the Company coughs up a month's salary.