In broad terms corruption is anything which diverts a person, group or institution from its stated purpose. In terms of current language usage, the most common meaning of corruption is bribery, or the receiving of favors in exchange for positive discrimination of some form on behalf of an individual, group, company, political party or even government . Corruption is therefore different from incompetence in that there is a degree of managed intent on the part of someone. This can be undertaken with or without the knowledge of others. Incompetence and corruption Unlike the case of incompetence, a corrupt person usually has no concerns with standards or procedures established for a group or institution.
Corruption therefore has a more significant dimension of moral and ethical deficiency.
One problem with the word corruption is that it is commonly used to 'brand' such behavior as incompetence, bribery, discrimination and crime. In other words the term is too fuzzy. For the sake of transparency the term needs to be broken down into substantive components. Corruption, as bribery, can be better described its components. Bribery involves an act of discrimination which is a lack of equity in handling a particular issue.