Why is Bribing Doctors an Excusable Crime? The Normalization of Professional Corruption

Abstract Professional corruption is a pervasive issue with significant societal consequences. This study investigates the normalization of professional corruption by examining bribery among physicians in Chinese hospitals, where informal payments, or ‘red packets’, from patients were often reported despite being illegal. Drawing on a qualitative case study, we develop a process model comprising four mutually reinforcing building blocks: organizational arrangements, which capture distinct features of professional campuses that enable corruption; constrained supervision, which weakens institutional governance and limits accountability to clients; rationalizations, through which professionals justify informal payments by emphasizing professional expertise and social respect while downplaying the social trusteeship value; and socialization, which operates through a combination of structural assurance and backstage cocoons that desensitize professionals to the ethical implications of bribery. Furthermore, we highlight the role of cultural resonance in linking corrupt practices to traditional gift‐giving customs, thereby legitimating informal payments in professional contexts. Our findings contribute to understanding how organizational factors and cultural traditions jointly enable corruption, offering insights applicable to other professional organizations while emphasizing important boundary conditions.