Purpose
This paper aims to determine the underlying structural foundations that explain why mega (large-scale) corruption exists in an ever-more sophisticated form and how and why the phenomenon remains an intractable threat to global socio-economic stability and sustainable development.

Design/methodology/approach
Post-colonial theory is used along with critical perspectives on corruption in international business. The paper privileges the decolonization of the current paradigm where “hegemonic orthodoxy” is maintained and enforced through domesticated criticism of corruption in academic literature and in the media.

Findings
The author explains the foundations of “International mega-Corruption Incorporated” (ImC Inc.) and concludes that apart from being the results of greed and criminal intent, it is a designed and weaponized violent instrument for undermining human progress. ImC Inc. occurs through resource control and the manipulation of institutions. Thus, the same theories, the same analyses and the same media exposés on the “pandemic of ImC Inc.” are followed by the same inactions or lacklustre interventions that ignore the powerful international financial institutions serving as the major facilitators.

Social implications
The nature of ImC Inc. as an existential threat requires mass awareness about its historicity and deep-seated influence on institutions, in order for stakeholders to form a countervailing power to proactively disrupt it in its complexity and in contextually meaningful ways.

Originality/value
This paper provides useful clarifications about specific factors that determine how ImC Inc. exists and thrives in its current form and how to deploy sweeping, corrective and pre-emptive interventions rather than reactionary policies against ImC Inc.