This paper explores when and how entrepreneurs who operate new organizations in environments where corruption is endemic can resist it. Despite the continued scholarly interest in corruption, anticorruption efforts by micro, small, and medium enterprises have been largely overlooked. Instead, studies have focused on the intraorganizational actions of larger established organizations (local and multinational) without sufficiently considering their interdependence with other actors in their external environments. Given the social exchange nature of corruption, we collected and analyzed data from interviews with Tanzanian entrepreneurs, and theorized about when and how they circumvent or resist corruption. Our findings illuminate the complex relationship between entrepreneurs’ motivations and capability, and highlight the strategies entrepreneurs use when they seek to resist corruption without compromising their resource needs. Subject to their leverage (i.e., resource endowments and available alternatives), entrepreneurs resist corruption by avoiding powerful focal firms, restructuring their resource dependence in a firm-focused manner, and managing risks. Considering social-relational dynamics, entrepreneurs also find ways to avoid interactions with corrupt agents and to use power strategically (through political tactics, such as co-opting and challenging) that influence agents to act in the entrepreneurs’ best interests and against corruption.

中文翻译：

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逆流而上：企业家为抵制坦桑尼亚腐败现象而采取的微观策略


本文探讨了在腐败盛行的环境中经营新组织的企业家何时以及如何抵制腐败。尽管学术界对腐败持续感兴趣，但微型、小型和中型企业的反腐败努力在很大程度上被忽视了。相反，研究重点关注大型组织（本地和跨国）的组织内行为，而没有充分考虑它们与外部环境中其他参与者的相互依赖性。鉴于腐败的社会交换性质，我们收集并分析了坦桑尼亚企业家访谈数据，并对他们何时以及如何规避或抵制腐败进行了理论分析。我们的研究结果阐明了企业家动机和能力之间的复杂关系，并强调了企业家在不损害资源需求的情况下寻求抵制腐败时所使用的策略。根据其杠杆作用（即资源禀赋和可用替代方案），企业家通过避开强大的焦点公司、以公司为中心的方式重组其资源依赖以及管理风险来抵制腐败。考虑到社会关系动态，企业家还找到了避免与腐败代理人互动的方法，并战略性地使用权力（通过政治策略，例如拉拢和挑战），影响代理人按照企业家的最佳利益行事并反对腐败。