The “grabbing hand” or the “helping hand” view of corruption : evidence from bank foreign market entries

Petrou, Andreas and Thanos, Ioannis (2014) The “grabbing hand” or the “helping hand” view of corruption : evidence from bank foreign market entries. Journal of World Business, 49 (3). pp. 444-454. ISSN 1090-9516

Preview

PDF (Revision_two_final)
Revision_two_final.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs.
Download (257kB)

Abstract

This study adopts a resource perspective to explore a non-linear relationship between corruption and two measures of bank foreign market commitment, the capital invested and the share of equity, on a sample of 131 bank entries in forty host countries. Our findings support a U-shaped relationship providing evidence of the “grabbing hand” view at low to moderate levels of corruption and, supporting the “helping hand” view at high levels of it. In addition, market-seeking motives are found to have a positive moderating effect on this relationship. This study contributes to the long-standing debate about the effects of corruption on FDI.