Corruption Determinants, Legal Literacy, and Professional Performance in Construction: An Empirical Study

The construction industry is inherently susceptible to corruption due to its complex workflows, diverse stakeholders, and narrow profit margins. Conventional approaches focus on technical performance and punitive measures but overlook the association between psychological factors, limited legal literacy, and professionals’ vulnerability to corruption. This study is the first empirical investigation to jointly examine corruption determinants, professional performance (through ratings), and legal literacy in the construction industry, establishing their interrelationships through field evidence. This study adopted a multistage approach: unstructured expert interviews identified four determinants—distributive justice, procedural justice, sense of mastery, and powerlessness—along with a legal literacy scale. A questionnaire of 124 Indian construction professionals was then conducted. Data were analyzed using correlation and curve-fitting techniques. Results revealed that a sense of mastery and powerlessness are directly associated with both performance ratings and awareness of legal literacy on corruption. Moreover, a positive correlation between performance ratings and awareness of legal literacy on corruption was established, demonstrating that professionals with higher legal awareness are rated strongly. These findings validate a psychologically informed model of corruption vulnerability and introduce a corruption mitigation framework (CMF) that links empowerment, performance enhancement, and legal training. This framework provides actionable strategies for organizations to target the underlying factors of corruption, rather than relying solely on external enforcement.