In general, corruption in Africa is a broad topic, and it is essential to narrow down the scope of the study to achieve more detailed and relevant results. Therefore, in this research, I am planning to focus on the empirical part of the topic and attempt to make a positive change in society. In other words, I am not going to study morality, philosophy, history, and side effects of corruption in Africa, but rather solely focus on possible solutions to the problem. Although corruption is an ingrained issue of many developing countries, I believe it is possible to make a positive change via collaborative effort, as demonstrated in the previous research (Abu & Staniewski, 2018; Galperin et al., 2020). Ultimately, empirical studies and practical implementation constitute the focus of my topic statement.
The core ideas of my topic statement include the ingrained causes of corruption in Africa, freedom of media and its impact on bribery, the development of ethical businesses, and my potential academic contribution to the fight against corruption. Many scientific studies are devoted to the topic; however, most of them are descriptive and concern theoretical frameworks (Budhram & Geldenhuys, 2018; Turyakira, 2018). Therefore, after reviewing the existing literature, my topic shifted to the practical solutions to corruption in Africa. At present, there are several studies devoted to empirical studies, such as the research of bribery in the health sector by Onwujekwe et al. (2020). However, the literature gap between the theoretical and practical implications still exists, and I plan to contribute by focusing on the possible solutions to the problem. Ultimately, I chose a broad topic at first; however, shifting to empirical study and practical implementations narrowed down the scope of my work and would be beneficial to my research.
References
Abu, N., & Staniewski, M. (2019). Determinants of corruption in Nigeria: Evidence from various estimation techniques. Economic research-Ekonomska istraživanja, 32(1), 3052-3076.
Budhram, T., & Geldenhuys, N. (2018). Combating corruption in South Africa: Assessing the performance of investigating and prosecuting agencies. Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology, 31(2), 23-46.
Galperin, B. L., Enueme, C. F., & Dixon, D. P. (2020). Pay the bribe or take the high road: Dilemma of a young female Tanzanian entrepreneur. The CASE Journal, 16(1), 75-96.
Onwujekwe, O., Orjiakor, C. T., Hutchinson, E., McKee, M., Agwu, P., Mbachu, C.,… & Balabanova, D. (2020). Where do we start? Building consensus on drivers of health sector corruption in Nigeria and ways to address it. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 9(7), 286.
Turyakira, P. K. (2018). Ethical practices of small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries: Literature analysis. South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 21(1), 1-7.