"Size does not matter when it comes to bribery," says George Serafeim of the Harvard Business School, who published a study on the effects of grift on an organization. "Small or big bribing is bad business in the long term."

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Tragic, but true: bribery is rampant in the business world and organizations of every size and sector are caught in its web. Based on a survey of more than 100,000 people in 107 countries, a Transparency International report found that over 25% of respondents paid a bribe in the past year. The World Bank estimates that the equivalent of $1 trillion is offered in bribes every year.

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While greasing palms may appear to grease the wheels of business, the long-run costs are very damaging on performance. Corporate corruption not only negatively impacts a firm’s reputation and causes regulatory run-ins, bribery negatively effects employee morale.

That’s worth noting, because studies have shown a link between employee morale and a firm's performance, evidenced by stock market returns. For instance, a survey of 13.6 million employees in 840 companies about workplace morale revealed that high-morale companies had significantly stronger stock performance than companies with lower morale reports. High-morale companies gained 15+ percent improvement in their stock performance from 2011 to 2012, compared with a 4.1 percent year-over-year improvement among the low-morale firms.

ISO 37000 family of anti-bribery management system standards offer organizations the controls to comply with regulations and maintain control over the temptation to step on the slippery slope of bribery. The benefits include protecting reputation by containing and controlling the actions business allies and employees undertake. It sends a strong message to all stakeholders that your organization means business–and only business.
 

Steps in human resources to identify and fix an organization's susceptibility to offering or taking bribes:

1. Develop an environment of accountability. Learn to love the complainers. Create an environment that allows and encourages the right kind of complaints. 
 

2. Create an ethical work environment. Moral reasoning is highly effected by the environment, so an organization that promotes moral reasoning can expect positive results. Make sure everyone knows one of your company's values is to follow ethics.

3. The fish rots from the head, so promote carefully. Also be willing to reverse a promotion, if the promotion was the wrong decision. Individuals with Machiavellian tendencies or low ethical standards, when in positions of power tend to express those characteristics more and in turn effect the behavior of the people under their purview.