Anti-corruption in Action: How is Anti-corruption Practiced in Multinational Companies?

In this thesis I analyze anti-corruption in multinational companies by examining how it is practiced by compliance officers. In light of a growing number of studies conceptualizing anti-corruption as a macro-structural norm or a micro-exchange between individuals, and scholarly calls for more attention to anti-corruption in the private sector, I theorize anti-corruption as situated and recursive activity. As a situated practice, anti-corruption happens within the socio-material context of multinational companies in global governance and globalization. As a recursive activity, anticorruption is analyzed as the discursive and non-discursive action of compliance officers. In this sense, the broad question I ask in this study is how is anti-corruption practiced by compliance officers in multinational companies? To answer this question, I employ a praxiography-inspired methodology which allows for the reconstruction of the practice of anti-corruption. Fieldwork took place in Denmark and China to address both the design and implementation of anti-corruption corporate programs, and consisted of semi-structured interviews with anti-corruption and compliance experts, participant observation in relevant events, and document analysis of public and private documents and other written material.