Does social cultural context matter? Perceptions and experiences of corruption in healthcare system

Corruption as a phenomenon manifests complex nature that is highly dependent on cultural context. Many authors (Morris and Klessner 2010, Graeff and Svendsen 2012, etc.) have devoted a lot of attention to analysis of corruption motives and manisfestations, however, the question still remains open because of the fact that corruption itself includes many types of behaviors and is also culturally determined. As common practice indicates, one behavior is deemed as corrupt, meanwhile the other is considered as acceptable depending on cultural norms and social settings. As Graycar and Prenzler (2013 p. 3) argue “very often there is debate about weather the behavior is acceptable, harmful or simply routine”. Petty corruption in healthcare system deals with plentitude of factors that are highly sensitive in decisions to get involved or not into corruptive behavior. Public health is the area with the highest moral intensity as it is directly related to survival needs of human beings (Craft, 2012, Jones 1991). According to the Eurobarometer 97.2 (2022) data around 36.7 % of respondents indicated that corruption is wide-spread in healthcare systems of their countries. However, country shares ranged from as little as 5.8 % in Finland to as many as 82.5 % in Greece. In this paper we hypothesize that these country differences of perceptions are predetermined not only by actual levels of spread of corruption and/or effectiveness of anti-corruption measures in countries but also form cultural factors and citizens’ perceptions of what constitutes corruption. The paper is dwelling on the quantitative and qualitative methodology. We use empirical data from Eurobarometer 97.2 when analyzing trends and determinants of citizens’ perceptions of corruption in healthcare sector of their countries. We also employ qualitative data from focus group discussions in 2019 with people having direct experience of contact with the healthcare system (disabled people) in order to reveal perceptions and manisfestations of petty corruption through the experiences of participants. And finally, we present the findings from systematic literature review with the aim to discuss the motives of engagement of petty corruption in healthcare system and characteristics of cultural context.