Agile leadership and responsible practices: Fighting corruption in Lebanon's SMEs

Corruption is a major social challenge because it undermines social, economic, and political systems. Yet the implementation of anti-corruption systems in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in politically unstable contexts such as Lebanon remains underexplored. This research addresses this gap by examining Responsible Management-as-Practice (RMAP) in a Lebanese family-owned exchange house navigating the country’s instability. Drawing on intervention research, it highlights the value of Qualimetrics—particularly the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM)—for observing and studying responsible managerial practices aimed at countering corruption in resource-constrained firms facing regulatory pressure. Using a practice lens and in-depth interviews, focus groups, and documentary materials, the study investigates how the firm embeds four core pillars into daily operations: ethical and agile leadership, regulatory compliance, proactive risk management, and employee awareness and participation. The findings show that SMEs can overcome resource constraints by adopting RMAP to implement effective anti-corruption efforts while improving organizational performance and resilience.