Understanding the Corruption Perceptions Index

In this chapter, a general idea of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is explained jointly with the role of the CPI in national and international economics, business, and corporate diplomacy. This chapter also contains an explanation about the construction of the CPI and the information used in the index system jointly with the methods for its construction. It contributes with an understanding of the CPI regarding its impact, considering national and international contexts, and guiding decision-making for governmental authorities and for managers and directors of organizations. Next, diverse important concepts about corruption, its types, and its consequences are presented. Corruption involves “primordial attachments in the award of contracts and appointments, embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds, inflation of contract sums” (Chimdi,. Journal of Gender, Information and Development in Africa 8:195-219, 2019a, p. 198), it reduces the development and the economic growth (Sari, Science and Engineering Ethics 23:1673-1688, 2017), damages diverse global sectors including the global health (Mackey et al., BMC Medicine 14:1-12, 2016), and “thrives on bad governance and chronic exploitation” (Maxwell et al., Disasters 36:140-160, 2011, p. 157). Subsequently, a discussion about the results of the studies related to the appropriateness of the indicators of the CPI is presented. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations for future research are presented.