The influence of Human Resources Management Practices on Corruption Behavior in Humanitarian Aid

Purpose: The aim of this research is to study the implications of the human resources management practices on corruption in Humanitarian aid as the phenomenon is still an understudied one (Akbar and Vujic, 2014, Mello and Quin... [ view full abstract ]

Purpose: The aim of this research is to study the implications of the human resources management practices on corruption in Humanitarian aid as the phenomenon is still an understudied one (Akbar and Vujic, 2014, Mello and Quin 2015) and is considered to be a hot topic since the determinants of corruption from an individual perspective have been scarcely discussed in the non-profit sector (Epperly and Lee, 2015; Mohiuddin and Dulay, 2015).
Design/Methodology/Approach: Building upon a long experience in the humanitarian aid field, the author departs with an ontological journey leading the way to the identification of some factors which set the base for the studied phenomenon. Then she proceeds to adopting the Straussian grounded theory as a method, carefully choosing five case studies of corruption in the Lebanese context, and interviewing 30 respondents who have worked or still working in the concerned organizations.
Findings: The findings of this study could be classified into three main themes which appear to be linked to corruption in humanitarian aid: human resources administration weaknesses, the hard inter-subjective relations within the same agency in addition to the lack of inter/intra agency coordination mechanisms.
Research Limitations/implications: This study suffers from few limitations pertaining to the sensitivity of the context, to confidentiality issues, to retrospection in some cases, and to possible bias resulting from staff frustration. They were dealt with respectively through ensuring to interviewees utmost anonymity in publishing the results, through embedding in the interview guide several equivalent questions to avoid respondents’ bias, and through cross-checking answers of the respondents from within the same organization. This research lends itself to other studies across different geographical contexts, in a quantitative approach, to be able to generalize the results.
Practical implications: This research proposes a corruption preventive model which serves as a tool driving better human resources practices in humanitarian aid. The results suggest that corruption could be drastically attenuated through putting in place clear job descriptions with clear reporting lines, ensuring strict and transparent recruitment procedures, implementing efficient evaluation and reward system, enforcing ethics training, managing cultural differences between national and international staff and through reaching to effective coordination inside the same agency and across agencies to avoid duplicative and useless work.
Social implications (if available): This research highlights the dangerous impact of corruption in humanitarian aid and raises awareness among humanitarian aid managers and workers about the importance of preventing it so that more vulnerable people are reached and that the donated money fulfills its intended target.
Originality/value: This work brings value to research on humanitarian aid as it considers the corruption phenomenon with new lenses focusing on individuals rather than on systems thus opening up new horizons of study away from the traditional stream of research on service delivery. With an insider look, the researcher sheds the light on how human resources management practices can play an active role in triggering or preventing corruption.
Keywords: humanitarian aid, corruption, human resources, United Nations, NGOs.