Resumo

Organizations of all kinds, private and public, operating in any industry, and in any country, are subject to corruption. Indeed, corruption is characteristic of the very existence of economic activity (Dimant, 2013). Wells (2008) identifies different types of corruption: (1) bribery, featured primarily as paying values and rendering favors to someone because of hierarchical position (p.240); (2) unwarranted or illegal gratuities, which may influence business decisions, as in a bidding process (p.252); (3) extortion, a type of corruption characterized by the act of threatening someone (p.252)

In this context, the paper seeks to understand how control bodies - especially the IA - are circumvented, confronted or manipulated, allowing corruption to spread. However, corruption as a logic on its own would imply that context actors could enforce its prescriptions, and compete with other logics for context acceptance.

This section, reviews society’s central logics, how to recognize them, and the implications of their multiple bearing on actors. As a consequence of the conflicts caused by the presence of multiple logics, the study reviews some of the alternatives organizational actors may resort to when they wish to avoid certain institutional prescriptions.

This research is descriptive and explanatory, as it aims to clarify the different representations of a case and the reasons that constitute it. We used case study as a research strategy as it allows the understanding of complex social phenomena and also the investigation of various levels of analysis within it (Yin, 2010, p.29; Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 534). It should be highlighted that in the interviews corruption was approached through the presentation of examples extracted from cases reported in communication vehicles (websites, newspapers and magazines).

Corruption Logic or Strategic Action? Elements of corrupt practices may be perceived in the IA Assistant's statement. This interviewee’s speech indicates that the decision between maintaining the relationship with the client or terminating it is strategic and may vary from ccase to case, regardless whether or not it is mediated by corruption. From another angle, a market logic seems to orient the assistant’s reasoning, which suggests a prevalence of this logic over a public one.

This study asserted that even though organizations face regulatory regimes and usually keep internal and external controls schemes over corrupt practices, these practices keep being unveiled, investigated, and sued. Control schemes may be internal departments, such as the IA, as well as external sources, such as EA, that double check the practices and documents of organizations, both being instructed and supervised by government and financial agencies.

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