Beyond laws and reforms: cultural-institutional foundations of corruption in Malaysia’s civil service

This study examines how cultural norms sustain corruption within Malaysia’s civil service through the lens of New Institutional Theory (NIT). Despite successive legal reforms and anti-corruption initiatives; including the National Integrity Plan (2004), the National Anti-Corruption Plan (2019-2023) and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (2024-2028), as well as multiple changes of government since 2018, Malaysia’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has shown limited improvement since 2020, indicating that corruption persists beyond administrative and procedural shortcomings. This study argues that corruption in Malaysia’s civil service is deeply embedded in informal institutions and shared social logics that shape how integrity, loyalty and legitimacy are interpreted. Using a qualitative documentary research design, the study analyses academic literature, official policy documents, media reports and publicly available elite discourse related to governance and anti-corruption. Directed content analysis, guided by the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of NIT identifies three interrelated cultural dynamics that sustain corruption: collective sentiment prioritising harmony over accountability, hierarchical obedience discouraging ethical dissent, and leadership narratives that symbolically legitimise misconduct. The findings demonstrate that informal institutions frequently override formal rules, limiting the effectiveness of regulatory reforms. The study concludes that sustainable anti-corruption reform requires cultural-institutional alignment in which moral beliefs and social expectations reinforce, rather than undermine, formal governance mechanisms.