Investigating the Status of Perceptions of Corruption and Related Factors in Sarpol-e-Zahab City

As a global widespread issue, corruption has deep roots in history of human being and human institutions and organizations. The World Bank states that corruption plays a cancer-like role that could kill the entire community. Understanding the importance and necessity of research about corruption would be made clearer by taking into account its effects, since corruption has adverse economic, social, political, and environmental consequences in all aspects of human life (e.g. political, economic, and social, to name a few). There are different indices to measure corruption: The Corruption Perceptions Index is one of several ways in which the International Transparency Organization systematizes corruption-related information. This index has been the most popular and applicable tool for measuring corruption. In this study, corruption perceptions index was used to measure the corruption in Sarpol-e-Zahab City.

This article was conducted using the quantitative method. The purpose of the research was descriptive-analytic and the method used in this article was survey. The statistical population used in this study was people of Sarpol-e-Zahabcity. The sample size was 400 people and cluster sampling was used in this regard. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the research were assessed using formal and structural validation, and Cronbach's alpha test, respectively. The dependent variable in this study was the perception of corruption, which was measured in three dimensions: attitude to corruption, trend of corruption over time, and prevalence of corruption in offices. Independent variables were: media consumption, political awareness, value orientation, and economic base. In addition, in this study, gender was examined as a contextual variable.

 The results showed that corruption has mostly occurred in the municipalities. However, the least corruption was seen in universities. According to results, the embezzlement increased in the community over the past ten years, while there has been little change in the level of bribery and gambling. In addition, men's perception of corruption was significantly higher than women. The results showed that perceptions of corruption differed between the two existing political trends in the country; in fact, the perception of reformist corruption was greater than the perception of fundamentalist corruption. The results of Pearson correlation test showed that Corruption Perceptions Index had a positive and significant relationship with the variables of political awareness, media consumption and modern value orientation, but corruption perception was not significantly correlated with socioeconomic status. Finally, based on the results obtained through path analysis, it was recognized that the variable of political awareness had the highest role in explaining the perception index of corruption.According to the results, the prevalence of corruption in all organizations was not equal; in fact, there was less corruption in cultural organizations. In addition, there was the highest corruption in organizations dealing with economic activities. An important point to note is the respondents' awareness of the state of the corruption process in the last ten years. This level of awareness seems to be influenced by the expansion of access to the mass media, a matter that was confirmed in this study. According to theoretical literature, there is a strong relationship between the perception of corruption and the actual rate of corruption in society. Looking at the statistics obtained in this study, it can be seen that in the last few years there has been a great deal of embezzlement. The mechanism of the link between political awareness and the perception of corruption is that individuals are better able to respond to the functioning of government by becoming aware of the political process. But, more importantly, there was the perception of corruption in political tendencies. Reformists are usually critical of the political system, but in contrast, the fundamentalists are in line with the political system. This is why, according to the reformists, corruption is high in the country. In explaining the relationship between the modern value orientation and the perception of corruption, it can be said that the tendency to modernize increases the tendency for transparency and rationality. Thus, with the increase in the level of modernization, people are becoming more sensitive to corruption and administrative transparency. Explaining the difference between men and women in their perceptions of corruption requires further investigation. However, in any case, gender still seems to play an important and influential role in the society. Another important and noteworthy point is that the socio-economic bases have no relation with the perception of corruption. However, the results of previous research contradict this finding. So, there is a need for more research to better understand this matter.