We read in 1 Timothy 6:10 that: "For the love of money is the root of all evil…" This Scripture reading is quite familiar to virtually all people and certainly very familiar to those that work in important and meaningful positions at corporations. Of course, corporations are concerned about all sorts of things, but at the end of the day, most public for-profit corporations are most concerned about either making money or developing a sure path to getting more money or for getting more market share or for simply getting more. This corporate desire for ever improving gross margins, for ever increasing sales, and for meeting and exceeding quarterly expectations, places significant pressure on all those that work there to do what is necessary to achieve those goals. While there may be very specific rules and regulations within a given corporate entity of what is and isn't allowed, when it comes to the money aspect of it all, just the basic allure of money, seems to trump all good judgment.
The first step in any contemplated corruption is simply taking a given rule which is clearly quite black and white, and deciding that instead, that there is room to negotiate around the edges of it. In virtually all cases, corruption begins first with the thought, once the thought has begun, the pathways for achieving the desired result become quite clear, and soon the execution of the thought is finalized and the deal is done. It doesn't matter much if the actual originality of the idea comes from you, or whether, in fact you have piggy-backed upon the ideas of another person, or been told to do it, or simply become a copycat of what you know or perceive that others have done themselves.
The beauty of corporate corruption, unlike your own personal corruption, is that your fallback excuse is that you have done this for the good of the company, and not for your individual glory or benefit. Often times, there is truth in this statement, in fact, sometimes corruption actually costs you some money in order to pull it off, but you are willing to make this sacrifice because the payoff or the gift that you have provided, is the tool that will nail down the order for the corporation and thereby benefit the greater whole.
Also too, fueling the fires of corruption is being in a situation to which you know that your bid is the fairest and best but instead of rightfully winning the bid, instead you lose that bid to another bidder because they made an arrangement or similar with the awarder of such. In these types of situations, there are only so many times that you can return to corporate headquarters with the message that you have failed, before you vow or are placed in the necessity of achieving success. It is in these types of situations, that the true character of a man is met, and so often, in a corporate world of justifications, equivocations, exceptions, and the bliss of seeing just about everything in "shades of gray" as opposed to black or white, the corruption is enacted.
While there are many laws that deal with corruption and its many facets both internal to corporations as well as universal within America, as long as the major metric that measures a company's worth is the amount of money that profits its executives and its stockholders, the temptation to make a way will be the way, over and over again.