Research reports
Perceptions of corruption - Survey of Victorian state government employees
This report outlines the responses of state government employees following research into their understanding of corruption, their perceptions of corruption and misconduct, attitudes to reporting corruption and misconduct, and attitudes towards preventing corruption.
The research focused on four areas:
- understanding corruption
- perceptions of corruption and misconduct
- attitudes towards reporting corruption and misconduct
- perceptions and attitudes towards integrity and preventing corruption.
The results suggest state government respondents have a sound understanding of what corruption is and could distinguish between corruption and misconduct behaviours. However, there was a low level of knowledge about how to report corruption.
Most state government respondents were confident they understood what constitutes corrupt behaviour (79 per cent). Corruption was more likely to be seen as something that happens in Victoria (59 per cent), than as a problem in my workplace (15 per cent) by state government respondents.
Four behaviours – conflict of interest, misuse of information or material, hiring of friends and family and abuse of discretion – were identified as the areas of highest corruption risk by state government respondents. Those behaviours were considered to be the most likely to occur, most likely to have been suspected of occurring, and most likely to have been observed.
