Revisiting Bad Apples and Bad Barrels: Person × Setting Interactions in Corruption

The divide between individual (bad apples) and structural (bad barrels) explanations runs deep through corruption research. This divide is bridged when individual corruption propensities and corruptive settings are studied in relation to one another, as proposed by the interactive approach and Situational Action Theory. A factorial experiment combined with a survey of public administration students (n = 577) tested hypothesized person-setting interactions in corrupt decision-making. Participants’ characteristics related to corruption differently across various organizational moral climates. Personal morality and self-control were strongly and negatively correlated with corruption, and their combined effect increased in a criminogenic setting. In neutral and criminogenic settings, monetary incentives were less salient than benevolent corruption which benefitted a likeable briber. The study concludes that corruption is better understood as an outcome of person-setting interaction. Bad apples are contextualized by their barrels and bad barrels are defined by their apples.