A second-year PhD student in the department of Sociology/ICS at Groningen University, Mala Sondang Silitonga researches leadership behaviour in the public sector, particularly in connection with the corruption and unethical behaviour of public leaders.

Her first research paper is titled Institutional Change and Corruption of Public Leaders: A Social Capital Perspective on Indonesia. She is currently working on a paper about social networks of corruption and is also in the process of gathering data for her research, which focuses on the impact of flanking regulations and the tendency towards corruption among Indonesian civil servants. Her main focus is on high-level civil servants working in Indonesia’s central and local governments.