Social Attitudes towards the Phenomenon of Corruption in Poland
Purpose: The paper explains to what extent selected sociodemographic, psychographic and economic factors differentiate attitudes of Poles towards corruption. Design/Methodology/Approach: The results come from an empirical study based on a representative sample of adult Poles conducted by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The subject of statistical analysis were the following three complementary issues, the scale of corruption in the opinion and common experience of Poles, moral attitudes of Poles towards the phenomenon of corruption and sociodemographic predictors of the corruption phenomenon. Additionally, we measured the scale of corruption in the opinion and common experience of Poles. At the stage of data analysis, multi-dimensional modeling with the use of optimal scaling (CATREG) was selected and descriptive and inductive statistics were used. Findings: The regression model for qualitative variables revealed an increased consent to the phenomenon of corruption in such groups as, age (the youngest respondents 18-24), occupation (industrial workers and craftsmen, school and university students, office workers) and political self-identification on the left-right scale. The greatest tolerance towards corruption – according to their declarations – have far right-wing and left-wing people, as well as those without specific views. The remaining components of the model, such as place of residence (voivodship), marital status and total crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, are of secondary importance. Practical implications: The results of the research made possible to make two other important conclusions. Firstly, according to Poles, the phenomenon of corruption has significantly decreased over the last few years. The respondents estimated that it is now much smaller than in 2017. Secondly, we compared the obtained results with other global studies. Originality value: We noticed that there is a gap between the opinions of experts (Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index) and the opinions of ordinary people about the size and dynamics of corruption in Poland. We have given plausible explanations for these phenomena. This is the first study of this type conducted in Poland since 2017 (not including the Transparency International’s Corruption Barometer, which, however, pursued different goals).