مجلة العلوم الاقتصادية وعلوم التسيير
Volume 26, Numéro 1, Pages 129-152
2026-07-31
The Nexus Between Compensation Modalities And Corruption Tendencies Among Public Procurement Professionals: A Systematic Review
Authors : Kudai Takesure .
Abstract
Public procurement absorbs an estimated 10–20% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and remains disproportionately vulnerable to corruption due to substantial financial flows and the discretionary powers vested in procurement officials. Although a substantial body of scholarship has examined the compensation-corruption nexus, this literature has progressed along fragmented trajectories: pay levels have been studied largely in isolation, performance-related pay has been debated without consistent theoretical grounding, and non-monetary compensation pathways remain empirically underexplored. The result is a field rich in empirical findings but lacking an integrative theoretical architecture capable of reconciling contradictory results. This systematic review addresses that gap through a rigorous, PRISMA-guided synthesis of 28 included studies, organized around an original theoretical contribution - the Compensation-Integrity Nexus Framework - that integrates Agency Theory, Person–Situation Interaction Theory, and Stewardship/Behavioural Ethics into a four-layer explanatory structure spanning compensation modalities, behavioural disposition, organizational ethical climate, and institutional enforcement. Three principal findings emerge. First, the relationship between fixed salaries and corruption is conditional rather than linear - higher pay deters corruption only when detection probability exceeds a threshold, when institutions reward merit, and when officials perceive wages as fair. Second, performance-related pay is structurally vulnerable to capture in public procurement, where ambiguous outputs and corrupt evaluation hierarchies can transform it from a deterrent into a selective reward for colluding subordinates. Third, the non-monetary benefit pathway represents the largest unexploited research lever, with all available studies reporting a deterrent direction despite weak methodological designs. By resolving the longstanding deterrent-versus-capture tension and specifying testable cross-moderator propositions, this review delivers a unified theoretical contribution that no prior systematic review has provided. Practically, it offers a sequenced reform blueprint - pairing compensation reform with institutional strengthening, restricting performance-related pay to measurable-output contexts, and investing in ethical leadership and professional identity formation - that policymakers and procurement agencies can adapt to context-specific integrity challenges.
Keywords
Public Procurement, ; Corruption Tendencies, ; Compensation Modalities ; Agency Theory ; Efficiency Wage Theory
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