Whether it is covering for someone who shows up late or altering a time sheet, misusing company time tops the list. This category includes knowing that one of your co-workers is conducting personal business on company time. By "personal business" the survey recognizes the difference between making cold calls to advance your freelance business and calling your spouse to find out how your sick child is doing.

Too many workplaces are filled with managers and supervisors who use their position and power to mistreat or disrespect others. Unfortunately, unless the situation you're in involves race, gender or ethnic origin, there is often no legal protection against abusive behaviour in the workplace.

According to a recent study by Jack L. Hayes International , one out of every 40 employees in 2012 was caught stealing from their employer. Even more startling is that these employees steal on average 5.5 times more than shoplifters ($715 vs $129). Employee fraud is also on the uptick, whether its check tampering, not recording sales in order to skim, or manipulating expense reimbursements. The FBI recently reported that employee theft is the fasting growing crime in the U.S. today.

The fastest way to lose the trust of your employees is to lie to them, yet employers do it all the time. One of out every five employees report that their manager or supervisor has lied to them within the past year.

5. Violating company internet policies
These are terms used to identify people who surf the Web when they should be working. It's a huge, multi-billion-dollar problem for companies. A survey conducted recently by Salary.com found that every day at least 64 percent of employees visit websites that have nothing to do with their work.

Effective law enforcement is essential to ensure the corrupt are punished and break the cycle of impunity, or freedom from punishment or loss.

Successful enforcement approaches are supported by a strong legal framework, law enforcement branches, and an independent and effective court system. Civil society can support the process with initiatives such as Transparency International’s Unmask the Corrupt campaign.

Reforms focussing on improving financial management and strengthening the role of auditing agencies have in many countries achieved greater impact than public sector reforms on curbing corruption.

One such reform is the disclosure of budget information, which prevents waste and misappropriation of resources. For example, Transparency International Sri Lanka promotes transparent and participatory budgeting by training local communities to comment on the proposed budgets of their local government.

Countries successful at curbing corruption have a long tradition of government openness, freedom of the press, transparency, and access to information. Access to information increases the responsiveness of government bodies, while simultaneously having a positive effect on the levels of public participation in a country.

Transparency International Maldives successfully advocated for the adoption of one of the world’s strongest rights to information law by putting pressure on local MPs via a campaign of SMS text messages.

Strengthening citizens demand for anti-corruption and empowering them to hold government accountable is a sustainable approach that helps to build mutual trust between citizens and government. For example, community monitoring initiatives have in some cases contributed to the detection of corruption, reduced leakages of funds, and improved the quantity and quality of public services.

To monitor local elections, Transparency International Slovenia produced an interactive map that the public populated with pictures and reports of potential irregularities in the election. As a result, cases of public funds being misused to support certain candidates were spotted.

Without access to the international financial system, corrupt public officials throughout the world would not be able to launder and hide the proceeds of looted state assets. Major financial centres urgently need to put in place ways to stop their banks and cooperating offshore financial centres from absorbing illicit flows of money.

The European Union recently approved the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which requires EU member-states to create registers of the beneficial owners of companies established within their borders. However, the directive does not require these registers to be made public. Similarly, the Norwegian, UK, and Ukrainian governments have all approved legislation requiring companies to disclose information about their owners, although these have yet to come into force.