Social Marketing and the Corruption Conundrum in Morocco: An Exploratory Analysis

The pervading force of corruption, across the globe, remains a major concern among nations, multilateral agencies, such as Transparency International, and more profoundly in major business and public policy discourses. For many developing countries, especially those with weak institutions, high levels of corruption are causatively associated with high levels of poverty, poor economic performance and under-development. This research explores the growing incidence of corruption in Morocco, which has stunted the country’s positive development. This research situates the treatment of corruption within the conceptual frame of social marketing—a demonstrably robust platform for analysing societal issues and, indeed, a validated behavioural intervention model. A two-pronged data collection method was applied, based on the positivistic paradigm and involving a total of 1000 respondents – with about 792 questionnaires fully or partially completed. Data analysis was accomplished through the use of logistic regression and propensity score matching techniques to remove socio-demographics biases. Findings based on micro-level data revealed that the campaign did manage to raise awareness among the public by about 60 per cent, it also changed perceptions about corruption with a modest but significant 8.2 per cent increase among population perceiving corruption as immoral. Similarly, respondents exposed to the campaign had a 20.8 per cent higher intention to change their proclivity towards corruption compared with the population not exposed to the campaign—with family influence reported as the main predictor of intention to change.