| Abstract: | The causes of corruption are often researched by scholars from the macroscopic perspectives of institutional and cultural factors. Neglected is scholarship on the relationship between individual values and corruption. People’s definitions and attitudes toward corruption are largely determined by personal values. However, scarce scholarly attention has been paid to what and how value factors exert influence on people’s attitudes toward corruption and how values moderate the relationship between the effectiveness of formal institutions against corruption and people’s anticorruption willingness. Drawing on the first‐hand survey data collected among Chinese civil servants, this research explores the impact of civil servants’ values on their tolerance towards corruption and willingness to engage in anticorruption. Adopting Hofstede’s (1984) four values model (power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity), this study reveals that respondents high on collectivism or masculinity hold higher corruption tolerance and lower willingness to participate in actions against corruption whereas uncertainty avoidance is negatively related to corruption tolerance and positively associated with the respondents’ willingness to engage in anticorruption. Furthermore, the values serve as moderating roles in the relationship between formal anticorruption effectiveness and civil servants’ willingness to engage in combating corruption. Specifically, both collectivism and masculinity dilute the positive impact of the government’s anticorruption effectiveness on anticorruption willingness. |
