Another institutional isomorphism is mimetic isomorphism. There is an important emphasis in institutional literature on mimetic isomorphism (Mizruchi and Fein, 1999). Mimetism is to copy the actions of business peers (DiMaggio and Powel,
1983). For example, Haverman showed that firms tend to imitate behavior of successful peers by following
them into similar markets (1993). Greeve examined how decisions of banks were influenced by mimetic isomorphism in their branch location decision (2000). Another example of empirical survey concerning financial institutions is a study conducted by Haunschild and Minner (1997). They found that the likelihood of using a particular investment banker
for an acquisition was related to the number of other acquiring firms that had previously used that banker.
In favor of the mimetic hypothesis, we should also stress the impact of reference groups on corruption
(Rose-Ackerman, 2002). The reference group for a given financial institution is the group of financial
institutions present in its market. Corruption is not only an individual action, it is also a social action
influence by the behavior of others social actors, especially within corrupt networks (Nielsen, 2003). Thus, if the financial service industry shows an