Bribery, extortion, graft, embezzlement - these are just some of the grizzly faces of corruption. In some countries, corruption is so common that it is as expected as a handshake when ordinary people or businesses deal with government officials. It is not a vice that started the other day but an act that has evolved over the years. It is now even part of the community fabric in most parts of the world.

Corruption, the misuse of an office for private gain has had many effects to organizations. For instance it has lead to issues like needless inflation of employee ranks that has lead to greater operational inefficiency, less favorable business climate and such conditions serves as a serious drag on a nation's wealth.

According to study by Ernesto Dal Bó, associate professor of political economy, and Martin Rossi of the Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina, corruptions posses characteristics such as lower GNP per capita, and lower investments and growth rates. These characteristics clearly show that corruption damages nations by crippling organizations.

This is evident from previous researches done like for example in Latin America about electricity distribution firms between 1994 and 2001. The results showed that these firms used significantly more employees to get the same job done. The research covered 80 electricity distribution firms in Latin America. Among the nations sampled, Brazil had medium corruption levels with Costa Rica the least corrupt as result of use of fewer employees to do the same job.