Distributive justice, corruption, and entrepreneurial behavior

This article introduces equity theory to the economic growth literature to examine whether a relationship exists between perceptions of distributive justice and the productivity of entrepreneurial behavior. Using survey responses from 317 entrepreneurs in India, we find that productive entrepreneurship is positively related to distributive justice perceptions but negatively related to perceptions that corruption is pervasive. In contrast, nonproductive forms of entrepreneurship are negatively related to distributive justice but positively related to corruption. Unexpectedly, the findings also show that corruption mediates the relationship between distributive justice and legal entrepreneurial behavior while distributive justice mediates the relationship between corruption and illegal entrepreneurial behavior. We conclude with a discussion of the study's findings and their implications for entrepreneurship and economic growth.