In the summer of 2015, EY and IEER conducted their fifth joint research on integrity and corruption at the Hungarian companies. The focus of the research was to investigate corporate measures against corrupt behavior and misuse of information or position, the penetration of corruption, and to have Hungarian corporate leaders’ opinion on corruption and their expected behavior about the subject. Our interviewers conducted personal interviews with owners and top management members of companies employing at least 50 people. The survey is based upon 305 interviews and can be considered representative concerning employment and ratio in the economic sectors. The research analyses the rule of law and the regulatory environment including the relationship with the government, the role of personal connections with state officials and the opinion of the managers on the recent governmental measures against corruption. In the second part of the paper we investigate the corporate governance and corporate rules against fraud and corruption such as ethical codes, ethics hotline, and handling of ethical misconduct. In the third part corruption risks are investigated considering corporate leaders’ perception of corruption and, with an experimental approach, their answers for hypothetical situations involving corruption are studied. Finally the research also examines the measures of risk management and the data security applied by companies.

The following analysis was prepared within the framework of a joint quarterly research project entitled "SME Perspectives", involving the HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) and Volksbank. For the survey a sample of about 300 small and medium enterprises with similar structures and elements were used.

In our analysis we try to find out to what extent does the perception of corruption affect satisfaction with the institutional environment, and what kind of corruption experiences have the greatest effect on this satisfaction. First, we present the company managers' perceptual changes towards corruption and also how their satisfaction with the institutional environment has evolved during the period from 2005 to 2010. Then, we search the variables that affect the development of this satisfaction. Our analysis shows that the higher the degree of corruption, the more negatively managers regard the institutional environment. Among the different corruption experiences cited, what makes managers significantly dissatisfied is, firstly, when they feel that their company has to pay bribes in order to get anywhere economically and, secondly, whether they consider corruption to be a major problem or not. Research of corruption is partly based on perception. Our analysis shows that subjective opinions are still relevant in the sense that much depends on personal experiences with corruption.

On the following link an English summary of the paper can be downloaded.

According to a recent study – made in the co-operation of Ernst & Young and the Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research –, 30 % of the Hungarian top managers would not reject a bribe offer. This is only one statement from the research which studied the attitudes of top managers toward corruption and the institutional corruption risks.